I am a not that experienced hobbiest, and right now I have one live hive. I had
another hive at a friend's that died over the winter.  I caught a small
(softball sized) swarm and put it in the dead hive.  It seems to have a nice
mated queen in it.  Can I expect the small swarm to amount to anything? The
hive has plenty of honey in it but the pollen is rotten to put it mildly. It's
in an area that seems to be very good for pollen and honey (upstate NY).  Right
now there's plenty of pollen available. In fact the old hive died out partially
due to their success (they plugged up their brood chamber with honey, I added
empty supers expecting them to move the honey up, they didn't, this+swarming=
not enough bees to make it through winter)
 
-Mike