Dear List,
On Friday at about 6 PM I hived a package of bees with a marked queen.
On Sunday around 11 PM all was peaceful when all of a sudden I looked and there were about 2.3 gazillion bees flying over the hive and another 1.9 gazillion on the front face of the deep. I watched and thought to myself "it looks like there getting ready to swarm". When next I looked, being otherwise distracted, the number had halved and in another 5 minutes all was peaceful again. 
My question is, how can a new hive swarm so quickly, if that is indeed what happened? How could there be time between late Friday and mid-day Sunday to raise a new qaueen to leave behind. Or what explanation could there be from this behavior? It's the first time anything like this ever happened to me. And what should I do now?
Yours,
John Howe

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