Have seen this before but have never been sure. Got a swarm that went up into a tree about 40-50 ft away from the hives but it is in two groups about soccer ball sized and about 3 ft apart. So question: Would this be one queen with each group or just one queen and the swarm divided up into two balls?

My bet is 2 queens. Probably separate swarms from 2 hives.

I've had one group with two queens, and two groups with one queen.

I just try to roll with it.

I'm wondering whether to put them all in one hive or not. They're way up there about 25' up so it's not an easy extraction.

Most likely a secondary or aftercast swarm with multiple virgin queens. After the prime leaves there's multiple queen cells, often more than a dozen, left to emerge. If multiples emerge at once leading to a free for all among the virgins (NSFW mental image) often a few bolt for the door and you have a swarm with multiple virgin queens.

Dump them in a box and let survival of the fittest sort it out.

Could hive them both in separate hives and set the hives next to each other. If one is queenless they would most likely drift to the queen right colony next door.

Also, bucket on a painters pole can help get those high swarms.

That’s what I’d do also. If there are multiple queens, virgin or otherwise, they’ll battle it out and one will end up as the queen of the new hive.

Thanks guys. You always come through for me.

Dump them in front of a hive box, on a sheet or a chunk of plywood and let them walk into the box. Watch closely , cage queen if you see her. You can split and make additional nucs if you find additional queens. If just one you will have a good strong hive.old243