Afterswarm
Verhalten der Bienen
After the prime swarm has left, the parent colony remains with brood and queen cells.
After the prime swarm has left, the parent colony remains with brood and queen cells. The first young queen usually emerges one to three days later. If the colony is then still strong, it swarms again with her. This afterswarm is smaller than the prime swarm and carries an unmated queen, sometimes even several. If the colony is weak, the emerged queen kills her rivals in their cells and it stays at just the one swarm.
This is announced by piping and quacking. The queens produce vibrations with their flight muscles, transmitted through the cell wall and comb and audible from outside. Which sound belongs to which queen is assigned differently in the literature; the common interpretation is that the emerged young queen pipes while those still in their cells quack.
Several afterswarms can thin a colony down to a remainder. Check a captured swarm for queenright status no later than a week after hiving it: if the queen is not laying, it was an afterswarm. If she still is not laying two weeks later, the swarm is united with another colony. The parent colony is checked about three weeks after the swarm left.