The swarm that left, and the swarm that stayed in the hedge
Hive one swarmed on a Thursday afternoon in May, which I know because a neighbour knocked to say the air above the gardens was full of bees. I had inspected the previous Sunday and found no queen cells. I had, I now realise, found no queen cells on the eight frames I looked at, and not on the two frames at the far side that were heavy and I did not lift. One of those two had a sealed cell on the bottom edge, which I found on Friday, along with three more.
The swarm did what swarms do and settled about 40 metres away, in the top of a hawthorn in the hedge at the end of the next garden, in a cluster the size of a rugby ball at roughly head height. Head height is lucky. The owners of the garden were kind about it, and a little fascinated, and stood at a distance in the doorway while I set up.
Catching: a cardboard box held under the cluster, a sharp shake of the branch, and most of the bees dropped into the box in a single clump. I turned the box over onto a white bedsheet on the lawn, propped one edge up on a stick to make an entrance, and left it. Over the next hour the flying bees found the box and walked in, fanning at the entrance, and by seven in the evening there were perhaps a few hundred still on the branch and the box was quiet and full.
At dusk I wrapped the sheet around the box, carried it back to my garden, and shook it into a spare brood box with frames of foundation and one frame of old comb. They went straight down. The next morning they were flying from the new entrance and bringing in pollen within three days, which is the sign that the queen is there and laying.
Hive one, meanwhile, had four sealed queen cells, which I reduced to one, choosing the biggest and leaving it alone. Three weeks later there were eggs again. The two-hive garden is now, briefly, a three-hive garden, and the third will be united back into hive two in the autumn. The lesson is uncomplicated: look at every frame, especially the heavy ones at the edge.