I chanced to hive a swarm with a suction swarm catcher and discovered
the next day that it did not contain a queen.  OK, I'd just combine
it with my regular hive.  But there was a timing problem.  I was in
the process of requeening that hive and didn't want to distract it
with some strange bees.  So I hived the swarm on ten frames of drawn
comb and fed it syrup for about a week.  So what did the external
hive activity look like in that interim?  This is the point of my
post.

These queenless bees oriented, foraged and stored pollen.  In other
words, looked just like a queenright colony!  I have observed the
same before but never in a colony which began (in their current hive,
anyway) queenless.

I have read many places that one can diagnose queenlessness by the
external behavior of the bees but I don't believe it.  At least, I
can't.  Dan







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