Originally Posted by
Adam
I have witnessed one 'mating swarm' a few years ago - they all came back and the queen started to lay a few days later. Jon has also written about them from mini-nucs where they all leave although I think that mini-nucs are an artificial construction and too small so the colonies behave differently sometimes. A supercedure usually results in the new queen killing her sister virgins and then taking over the colony after Mum is removed too - although I would guess that it is possible that two supercedure queens could emerge and the colony is triggered into "misbehaving" i.e. not doing what the books say. For your caught swarm, they have, maybe, not fully accepted that your hive is their new home and they will have no brood which can be an anchor to keep them in place so they have not fully settled - yet?
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