I got to witness an abscond develop and resolve with one of my move-in swarms Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday, I was checking on this swarm that never seemed to thrive. Although it had been queenright before, I saw some scattered capped brood and a few older larvae, but no eggs and no queen when I inspected the hive on Tuesday afternoon. There was a queenless roar from the time I opened this hive and the bees were very runny. I left the hive open and began preparing to do a newspaper combine of these bees into my weakest hive at home. The receiving hive was not nearly as strong as it had been, and I saw a small unmarked queen and a few eggs plus some older capped brood in the hive. This was a supercedure. I had marked the queen in this hive earlier in the season.
As I put newspaper down in the receiving hive, the swarm hive took to the air, and a softball+ sized group of bees gathered at the back of my yard. I went into the house for a few minutes, and they had moved. The next morning, I saw a small cloud of bees headed for the hive I wanted to combine bees into. Most appeared to have entered the hive and been accepted. Definitely a new experience for me.