To those who have replied so far to my question regarding supercedure and swarming, thank you. I want to point out one item. I received a few posts that indicated that supercedure and swarming are not the same event. Yes, I do realize that. The reason I tagged my post as "Supercedure and swarming" is that in one of my beekeeping reference books, it states that supercedure often leads to swarming. Having viewed my queen and noted that she appears to be failing, i.e. not laying adeqately, appearing emaciated, it would make sense that the bees would supercede here. What isn't exactly clear to me is that if a colony supercedes their queen and the supercedure does lead to swarming (according to the reference), why would they want to take the old failing queen with them? No other choice? Allow her to lay eggs in the new colony location and supercede her again? I do realize that if the bees don't take any queen with them, the colony will die in time. But, if the queen can't fly from the original hive, if she crawls out of the hive, is it possible that the swarm will get as far as the front of the hive and stay there? Laura Downey [log in to unmask]