I had a swarm, I think. I found the Ethel hive in the condition show below. (click on image to get large size.) I went back to the house to set up a nuc box with frames and bee pheromone to try and capture the hive if it took off. When I came back the hive seemed quiet, but active. Not as active as it had been, but it was working. The bait nuc did not catch anything and there was no sign in the neighborhood of a swarm. I was gone only about 15 minutes.
Now I don’t know if I lost the swarm or if it was a swarm. It might have been a mating flight by a new queen. Perhaps the old queen died.
I waited until later the day, just before dark and opened up the hive.
The hive is one deep body, a medium super, a queen excluder and another medium super.
I did not want to go down into the hive body for fear of killing a new queen. I just pulled off the top super, which has no comb, but there are lots of bees in it. The top of the queen exluder was covered by hundreds of young bees. The middle of the super was clogged by fresh comb. I lifted the corner and the medium (pierco) frames were all drawn out with comb and had lots of honey. The population seemed very high, there were lots of bees.
I am not sure what happened, but it looks like the hive is still good and strong.
