Assuming that our bees really have now stop swarming, merging and absconding then here's the final diagram of what they did......... you can click on the image to enlarge if you really want to.....
February 28th: Inspected the hive and found multiple swarm cells. At the last count we had 3 swarm cells in the bottom deep and 12 in the top deep. After the events of the last few weeks it's clear we had more swarm cells in the bottom deep that we missed.
March 1st: Performed an even split of the Langstroth hive in the hopes that it would prevent the bees from swarming. Saw and heard a new queen. The lower deep box remained in the original location and became known as the 'old hive', the upper deep box was moved to the side and was called the 'new hive' and then later 'the split'.
March 2nd onwards: Continued to hear multiple queens piping in both hives.
March 5th: Prime swarm from the old hive (swarm 1)
March 6th: Prime swarm (swarm 1) from the split with a simultaneous first afterwarm (swarm 2) from the old hive. The two swarms formed one cluster in Chad's arbor. When collecting the swarm we definitely saw two queens in the cluster but we think there was an extra one. The bees we hived in the Top Bar Hive (TBH) and the next morning there were two dead queens on the mesh at the bottom of the hive.
March 7th: Second afterswarm (swarm 3) from the old hive. The bees were hived in Alan's wooden nuc box but 30 minutes later they absconded and merged (merge 1) with the bees in the left side of the TBH.
March 8th: No swarms - the day was cloudy and windy and the temperature never got into the 60s
March 9th: Third afterwarm (swarm 4) from the old hive. The bees never settled and eventually merged (merge 2) with the bees in the TBH.
March 10th: Dead queen found outside both the old and split hives. We didn't record all of the dead queens seen over the entire swarm period but the bees were bringing out dead queens on a fairly regular basis.
March 11th: Fourth afterswarm (swarm 5) from the old hive. Later in the day the bees from the right side of the top bar hive absconded and merged (merge 3) with the in the left side of the TBH.
March 14th: Fifth afterswarm (swarm 6) from the old hive. The bees never settled and eventually merged (merge 4) with the bees in Alan's Nuc Box
March 15th: Sixth afterswarm (swarm 7) from the old hive.
March 18th: Bees absconded from the left side of the TBH leaving the whole hive now empty
Contents of the Hives:
Old Hive: The remaining bees after seven swarms left
The Split: The remaining bees after one swarm left
Alan's Nuc Box: Swarms 5 and 6 from the Old Hive
Martin's Nuc Box: Swarm 7 from the Old Hive
TBH: The prime swarms from both the Old Hive and the Split, in addition to the first, second and third afterswarms from the Old Hive. All these bees were ultimately lost when the they absconded. It was our biggest colony by far :( The TBH is currently empty.
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