Funny, whenever I've had a hive swarm, there are swarm cells in the hive. Are you trying to say that it's just a figment of my imagination? It has been my experience that the swarm leaves before the new queen hatches out.
A prime swarm may leave when the swarm cells are capped off. (But sometimes they wait until virgins have emerged.) But prime swarms are in April or May. (spring) They do not happen in August.
And when you have an old queen leave with a prime swarm, she usually begins laying again very quickly. As soon as the bees start making comb, she is trying to lay in it. This is not the situation we have here. It's been a week and no eggs.
Now when you have a swarm with a virgin (or many virgin) queens, it can take them a few days to sort things out and get mated and then start laying. That sounds a lot more like the situation we have here.
Also, the advice to cut out swarm cells is nonsense. It's a good way to end up with a queenless hive.
You spout a lot of opinions and attitude that I generally don't agree with and I usually keep shut about that, but telling her to "ignore this advice" is just plain wrong.
You also spout a lot of opinions and attitude that I generally don't agree with and I usually keep shut about that, but giving an inexperienced beekeeper bad advice like cutting out cells needs to be countered.
Maybe the reason you don't agree with my opinions is because you lack the experience I am basing things from. (You come across as rather inexperienced, to be honest.)
Frankly, it's almost September, and [ I could be wrong but] I don't think that the odds of a successful mating are all that good.
As long as you have drones and nice sunny days above 72 degrees, you should be able to get queens mated ok.
I still see drones in my hives.
Even if you *were* to get a good mating, the new queen would be behind going into the Fall/Winter season.
However, queens reared after the summer solstice usually lay like they are fresh new queens, and can lay a ton. If a queen can lay 3 rounds of brood before they settle into their winter cluster, bees seem to have a good shot at making it.
A lot depends on the size of the swarm. A tiny swarm will have a lot harder time reaching critical mass to be able to overwinter. A large swarm will have a lot better chance of getting established for winter.
If you give a late swarm some drawn comb (even a honey super) it will help them immensely to be able to overwinter.
At the end of August, going into September? It's worse than worthless- you could lose both the swarm hive and the mother hive.
Could? Maybe, maybe not. What's likely?
While late swarms are not very common, I've hived them and overwintered them. I know other local beekeepers who have hived late summer swarms and had them overwinter. A lot depends on what the fall flow is like.
I think you need to be prepared to re-combine the swarm with the mother hive fairly soon.
I think you need to wait a little before combining. See how strong the swarm hive is. And sometimes, late summer swarms come from somewhere else, and land near your hives. I've found late summer swarms within 100 yards of beeyards, and all my hives were full of bees and no signs of any swarm cells.
Overwintering a late swarm as a nuc or a single is an option too. I have had a lot of success doing this with late swarms.
It's my experience that combining 2 weak hives often results in a weak hive that won't overwinter. I'm better off trying to turn them into a 5 frame nuc and overwinter them that way.