Bees keep swarming help!
Good evening,
I am new to beekeeping and was hoping to get some advice as I am having issues with my bees swarming and I’m not too sure what to do/ what I am doing wrong.
A brief timeline of events.
November 2025: Got my first nucleus colony.
30 August 2026: Hive was two brood boxes deep and absolutely packed to the rim with bees so I added a super.
2 September 2026: I treated the hive with one patty of formic pro (23 varroa in alcohol wash) and removed two frames of honey and replaced them with an empty frame and a drone comb frame (top box was mostly packed full of honey with some brood).
12 September 2026: Old formic pro patty replaced with a new one.
18 September 2026: Lots of dead bees observed outside of the hive.
23 September 2026: A lot less bees in hive. About 8 queen cups which I thought were empty but maybe not? I could not find the queen so I left the queen cups in in case the Formic Pro rolled her. I did see young larvae. Originally, I thought the reduction in bees was from the Formic Pro but now I am thinking they have swarmed while I was at work. (for anyone interested I have found that Formic pro one patty at a time did not work particularly well even with the daytime temps well above 13 degrees since the varroa wash returned about 50. Added in Aluen cap since I’ve already used Bayvarol and Apivar earlier this year).
29 September 2026: There is a swarm of bees less than 10m from my original hive. I put them in a trap hive but could not find a queen. This could just be a me problem - I struggle to spot the queen. The swarm was happy in there as when I checked this morning they were going in and out of their new hive.
30 September 2026: I come home from work and find another swarm in my yard?! I can only assume they have come from my original hive? I have put this swarm into another new hive.
I was planning on going back into my original hive this weekend but now I’m thinking do I need to go in earlier to try and work out what is happening? Which brings me to my long list of questions:
Do I need to remove the queen cups from my original hive?
Should I buy some mated queens to put into my original hive and I guess two new hives if I can’t find any of the queens?
Why do they keep swarming?
Can I add the two swarms together to make one bigger colony if I successfully find and remove one of the queens?
I was going to check on the 29th September swarm this weekend to see if I can find a queen/ eggs or should I let them settle for a bit longer?
Should I treat the swarms with Aluen cap immediately once they have settled? (Did spot varroa on both when I was moving them).
My original hive is now three boxes tall with the super partially full of uncapped nectar/ honey. Pending my check this weekend I was going to compress the bees back down to two or even one box so there isn’t as much empty space. What should I do with the uncapped honey? It seems wasteful to empty it out of the frames but I don’t want it to go gross either. The freezer maybe until they are ready for a super again?
I know this is a very long read so if you have made it to the end and have any advice for me thank you!