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
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