As a second year beekeeper I thought I would share a new experience I witnessed this past weeekend. In an attempt to squelch a swarmy hive on May 11 I prepared a four frame nuc with frames from the hive preparing to swarm. One of the frames had 2 capped queen cells. This past week the weather has been cool and damp and I had noticed little activity from this nuc. It was placed about 5 feet from the original hive but most of the bees stayed in the nuc. So things seemed okay except for the lack of any real activity outside the hive. On Saturday, May 17, while inspecting the nuc, I noticed that one of the queen cells was open. The other cell was intact. I was very lucky to hear the 2 queens piping. The hatched queen would make her call and then the unhatched queen would respond with a similar but muffled reply. It was amazing. I located the hatched queen on the opposite side of comb vigorously looking for her rival. I completed by inspection, please that I had a live queen. Sunday provide the first fine weather and my other 4 hives showed good activity. The nuc still seemed very quiet. About noon I did finally notice bee emerging, both workers and drones. At about 1:30 I made a quick inspection to see if the other queen cell was still intact. It was, and there were very few bees left in the nuc. I wondered if they had swarmed or maybe returned home given the first real warm weather since the nuc was made. Well at about 2:00 I heard an unusual amount of bee activity outside. My hives are on my deck off the family room. I was thinking maybe the swarmy hive was swarming. It was the bulk of the nuc's population returning to the nuc all at the same time. Given the small entrance the bees were all over the front face and on the deck railing with many bees fanning to indicate the hive location. I didn't see the queen though I assume she was with them. It was an exciting two days. My question is did the bees escort the queen on her maiden flight and return with her and mark the location to assist her in finding the hive? Is this typical behavior? If it is, it would definitely decrease the risk of queen predation having all the sisters along for the flight. Regards, Jim Moore Second year, 4 hives (1 tbh) + one 4-frame nuc