I just had a hive swarm, a support hive, not a breeder so I don?t mind the loss of bees. I did not see the swarm, just noticed drop in population so I did a hive check and found queen cells. Now, 9/5 I have a hive with queen cells. This is nuts, queen cells in Sept. The hive was 3 deep 10 frame Lang, which I changed to a 2 deep this AM as after the swarm there was to much space for the remaining fewer bees.
I will monitor for eggs in the coming weeks and will combine if the new queen does not make it OR I have three extra mated queens if I decide to use them. The extra queens are in 5 frame nucs. The swarm has zero chance of surviving winter. Hives are Honey bound which is rare in N Arkansas. There is not a lot of space for the queens to lay, so this support queen took off and swarmed.
I checked my main breeder queen, she has places to lay, also there is eggs, larva, capped brood and no queen cells in my breeder hive.