2 swarms very close together captured questions

[dalewills]

Hi all,

I'm quite new to beekeeping having had bees for 12 months now. Yesterday I noticed that I had a swarm leave and locate themselves under my kids trampoline. Adjacent to this swarm only 3 mts away located on a rock was a second swarm. They were roughly the same size.
I captured the swarm hanging under the trampoline as it was straight forward. Then I decided to capture the adjacent swarm and add it to the swarm from the trampoline.
Have I stuffed up here by adding them together? and should I have kept them separate? My initial thoughts were that it was the same swarm given they were so close, but just in two clusters so I thought adding them together wouldn't be a drama but then later I thought that what if they were actually 2 separate swarms with their own queens.
I have captured them in an ideal box with 4 new frames with foundation pushed over to each side. I have this box lined on the bottom with 2 layers of newspaper. I plan to put this box onto the top of the weaker of my two hives (in my backyard). I'm assuming that this means the 2 queens would then fight it out.
Perhaps I should have kept these 2 swarms separate and added them back to each of my 2 hives.

Any advise or information about this scenario would be greatly appreciated.

Dale

[Andersonhoney]

I think yes it was from the one swarm. Well done. But joining it back from where it came (if I read right). Can the bees get in and out? If you rejoin now it will just swarm again, maybe even twice and you'll end up queenless. Keep them divided and rejoin after once the new queen is up and going.

[dalewills]

Thanks Andersonhoney,

Currently I just have a makeshift top (no equipment left) on the ideal and have left an opening for bees to come and go as they please. Does it matter if this access is at the top and not the bottom? Being only temporary I didn't think it mattered. How long should I let the queen establish herself before I introduce them to my existing hive with the newspaper trick? Will the 4 ideal frames be enough until I reintroduce them into a hive?

Also.....because I didn't have any brood supers (deeps) left I had to use my spare ideal box and frames with foundation to catch and temporarily house this swarm. My question is...once the queen starts laying in these ideal frames can this comb ever be used for honey production/consumption?

Many thanks
Dale

[Andersonhoney]

Top or bottom entry, either is fine.just be aware that the bees will get used to that entry when you change to normal bottom board entry.
Yes you can use that ideal comb for honey production, but not for comb honey.
Was this swarm from your original hive? If so why are you wanting to region them? Maybe I missed something in you description.

[dalewills]

Andersonhoney,

I am 99% sure that this swarm was from my hive. I don't have any more equipment to set up another hive so I wanted to just rejoin them back into the weaker of my 2 hives. Is this not a good idea? Hoping to let this swarm establish itself in the ideal box and them do the newspaper trick to join them in with my weaker hive.
Dale

[divemaster1963]

hey add your location. maybe someone could loan equipment.

john