Two weeks ago, I noticed that one of my hives had built numerous swarm cells. As a result, I created a nuc with the queen cells. Each one of the queen cells was capped. I then placed this nuc above the original hive with a wooden barrier to separate them. I then moved frames around in the original hive to break up the congestion. I made sure to keep the nuc fed with sugar syrup. I made sure the queen was in the original hive. Not only did I find the queen, but I found two queens. Leaving nature to take its course, I left both queens in the original hive. They know better than I which one is to be the survivor. Two weeks later, neither the original hive nor the nuc have any uncapped brood. As such, I am sure it is safe to assume there are no queens in either the original hive nor the nuc. My question is, what happened to all of the queens - the two queens in the original hive - and the numerous queens in the nuc? I would think the odds would be strongly against losing all queens, or am I just being too optimistic? I checked each of the queen cells in the nuc - all were cut open. At the time I noticed the second queen in the original hive, I did notice that only one of the queen cells had been cut open, which I would suppose is safe to assume is where queen number two came from. Was this a mistake from the beginning - creating the nuc with the swarm cells? It certainly didn't seem to do what I set out to accomplish. I am in the process of ordering a new queen for the original hive. I now need to reunite the nuc with the original hive. Do I need to reintroduce them slowly with newspaper in between the nuc and the original hive, or is that only done when two queens are present - one in the nuc and one in the original hive? Any comments and suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Laura Downey Anne Arundel Co., Maryland [log in to unmask]