Queen or no queen... oh and another swarm!!!

The day began well, the sun was out but a bit windy so we decided to wait a while to inspect the bees.  Had a cuppa at the allottment then came back.  Our nephew and his partner came round for a cuppa and always interested in the bees, asked if they could take a walk down to see them.  There it was... another swarm on the same archway as last time!!  Hubbs set to it catching the swarm, which was a bit unnerving as I had never seen that many bees together before but he caught them.  

As the swarm was settling down we began checking the rest of the bees..

Buckfast first as always are calm, busy and just get on with it.  Moved on to the Carnis (Harmony 2)  checked twice but not a queen in site and no eggs??  put the lid on, moved to nuc. 

The Nuc was pretty full so we decanted the colony into the new hive.. No Queen?!?!  however, there were 7 big queen cells and one was massive!!  we removed 6 cells and left the monster cell with the nuc/new hive..

Checked the final hive, no queen again so we put the swarm into it.  They will either, fight each other to the death, the swarm will move on again or... the queen will stay and lay..

What ever happens, we "will" be changing the carnis to Buckfast later in the season!! carnis are too much trouble!!!!!!!!!!