What makes it obvious that a swarm is queenless?  Maybe I was expressing myself
a little to confidently.  Rather than "obviously" maybe I should have said
"apparently" and rather than "swarm" I should have said "cluster of bees" or
something else.  I didn't go into great detail because the question I'm most
interested in is "where do queenless swarms go?"

To answer this and other questions regarding this episode, I'll go into a
little more detail:  I used my new bee vac (that I constructed using the plans
kindly provided by Matthew Westall and Barry Birkey) to pick up a colony of
bees that was established for a week or two under the cover of a water meter.
Consulting with Matthew on my experiences, he suggested that it's pretty
obvious when you didn't get the queen because the bees fly around inside the
box and are not calm.  Most of the bees hang in a calm cluster if you got the
queen.  If not, then they run around or fly and try to find the queen.  I was
not sure whether or not I had the queen, because the majority of my bees were
calm, while 1/4 or so of them were running around and angry and trying to get
out of the box.  Matthew told me that I obviously didn't get the queen.  He has
more experience than I do, so I took his word for it and expressed myself more
confidently than I normally would have done.  Sometimes we cannot be completely
100% sure about something but through experience, we start becoming attuned to
how bees act and sound when there is not a queen with them.

Two other things that happened drew me to the conclusion that there was no
queen.  First, when I dumped the bees from my box into the hive (and by the
way, I did put on a sugar syrup entrance feeder and constricted the entrance)
I then placed the almost empty inner vacuum box next to the hive so stragglers
could join the bees in the hive.  Half an hour later when I looked out, all the
bees from the hive had rejoined the bees in the lidless inner vacuum box that
was next to the hive.  (This all happened toward the close of the day).  I
dumped them into the hive again, then used my brush to sweep out every single
last bee into the hive, then removed the inner vacuum box completely from the
area so they couldn't recongregate in it.  Second, the next day (at the end of
the day) when I looked inside the hive, there was not a single bee.  As my
local beekeeping "mentor" friend has said to me on such occasions when bees
leave the next day, "They probably didn't have a queen."  Someone with more
experience than me (bolstering my confidence to say the same thing) might say
"Obviously you didn't get the queen."  I observe, think, decide, then act.
When I have failures like this, I also retrospect and consult.  If you see
brood and eggs in a colony, are you sure you have a queen?  Obviously you do.
But maybe you don't.  You might have just killed her accidentally while
examining the hive.  But you decide based on the observation that you have a
queen and act accordingly.

Final comment about this experience:  it was not such a great loss because
it was a rather small colony anyway.  I consider it a learning experience and
therefore valuable.  I helped the man (and the city) eliminate a bee problem
in a water meter area, had a successful removal using my new bee vac, and
learned something about how to recognize whether a queen is present or not in
a cluster of bees and what my options might be to not lose the bees.  Adding
a frame of brood with eggs and young larvae was one option, but there were not
enough bees to warrant that.  The best course of action would have been to
shake them into an empty super over a sheet of newspaper on top of an
established hive that needed more bees.  That way I would not have lost them.
Any way, that's the conclusion I have come to.  I always learn more valuable
lessons from my failures than I do from my successes.  They keep me stimulated
about how I can learn more and do a better job/make a better choice next time.

And still, no one yet has answered MY question, "Where does a queenless swarm
go?"  I suspect they search for their old home/queen, and failing that, find
a place to establish a queenless colony and eventually die out.  I don't think
they are likely to have joined another colony in the apiary.

Layne Westover
College Station, Texas

p.s. I forgot to mention the loud "hum" of these bees, almost like a loud
buzzing.  Does that also indicate queenlessness?  I think so (more
retrospection...I didn't recall that until just now).  Having made BAD mistakes
in the past has given me conviction and confidence.  At least I know for sure
in some cases what NOT to do.  I don't think I've ever enjoyed anything more
than I enjoy beekeeping.  It's a never-ending source of pleasure and learning
to me.  Thank you to all the contributors on this list too.  You help me to
find and recognize pieces to the puzzle.