Just wanted to give a status update on my older swarm that had started comb.
Thanks to all that responded.  I ended up using the rubberband method and
got 5 reasonable frames of brood comb.  Checking them today, the queen
continues to lay in these combs, the bees have semi-smoothed them into
working combs,  and they are bringing in plenty of pollen.  When I first
rubber-banded them, I started feeding a 1:1 sugar syrup, since I noticed
that they had no stores.  There is now a samll amount of liquid stores in
the brood boxes.
 
I believe the queen might be a new virgin queen that mated after the swarm
settled into their temporary quarters (before I got to them) for the
following reason.  One of the combs was completely drone comb.  I did not
put this into the new hive.  I assumed that the queen first laid drones into
the drone comb, mated, and then started the rest of the hive.  Of course,
that would put the swarm at much older than two weeks (if she mated with her
own "sons" instead of with drones that came with the swarm).  Does this make
sense?
 
Rick Grossman
Newberg, Oregon
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