My split swarmed.

[Bakerbee]

I had to do a split on may1st as came home to my hive attempting a swarm. (Mid bailey comb change just to complicate matters) I was lucky or so i thought as it rained they gave up , went back in, and i quickly did an AS. Alls well i thought. Then over the bank holiday weekend the same original hive tried to swarm 3 seperate times, tbousands flew about then gave up and went back inside. I checked them thoroughly and couldnt find a queen, no eggs 2 frames of capped brood and full of nectar and honey.. Today i returned home to find a slightly larger than rugby ball swarm settled on my veggie patch fence. So i collected them and popped them in a spare BB, full with new foundation and a couple of frames of stores. I have a couple of questions if youd be kind enough to help answer for me. My first is how long should i leave this swarm to settle before looking for the queen and requeening. ( it had always been my intention to requeen this year). My second is i suspect they swarmed the original hive without leaving the original hive with the means to raise a queen..this box had been part of an attempted bailey comb change last month and was the part that had very little brood left to emerge. As it had been left with the queen during the split. The other half of the split had bias on the 1st may and have made numerous QC's. I took 5 very carefully and transplantex them into the eggless hive ( that today swarmed). So i sm now waiting to see if i have any queens emerge from two hives whilst searching for the originsl Q in todays new 3rd hive. I am currently waiting till the end of may for 2 buckfasts i had preordered from exmoor. Can i leave these hives till then if their and my attempts at raising queens fails?

 

[Bakerbee]

I also forgot to mention that when going through the "problem" hive and found them full of nectar honey and 2 frames of capped brood i put a super under them with foundation so they would have room for laying once things got sorted and going.