Two Queens in the Hive

[ZEEBEE]

Hi all,

Saw something interesting today.
About 3 weeks ago, I trandferred a hive from a 20 frame long hive to a standard two deep vertical hive. I inspected today I saw the original marked queen but she wasn't laying alot. Less than two frames on the bottom super. She has plenty of room and is not honeybound. While I was closing it up, I noticed another queen with an egg sticking out the end of her abdomen.
I also did not see any swarm cells.

The best I can figure is that I either damaged the old queen in the transfer or stressed them out so much, they made a new queen?

Any suggestions of what I should do?

Thanks!!

[TX Ashurst]

<Any suggestions of what I should do?>

Find a comfortable chair, relax, read a good book, and let nature take its course. Be sure they're not preparing to swarm, but otherwise leave them alone.

[xC0000005]

Probably supersedure in progress. If the old queen isn't laying the bees will replace her. No problems there either, as the bees tend to know better than we do how well she is performing.

[bluegrass]

The long hive may have been a two queen hive and you just did not know it.

[ZEEBEE]

Thanks for the info.

I inspected the hive today and still saw two queens agains. They seem to be both laying. Also, the number of bees are starting to dwindle. There is only 1 frame of brood, if that. I'm afraid, once the queens sort themselves out, there will not be enough bees to tend to the brood.

This is a new problem for me and would appreciate some more advice.

Should I add some brood frames/nurse bees from my other hives to boost this one?

Thanks

[Ravenseye]

If they're both laying, you should have brood. If they're both laying so poorly that you only have one frame of brood, you need to re-queen either by ordering a queen or letting them make one. Any evidence of disease that could be causing your brood to die off? Can you see eggs? You could probably boost the hive a bit, but if you have a problem maintaining brood levels then you're only fixing it temporarily.

[peggjam]

Thanks for the info.

I inspected the hive today and still saw two queens agains. They seem to be both laying. Also, the number of bees are starting to dwindle. There is only 1 frame of brood, if that. I'm afraid, once the queens sort themselves out, there will not be enough bees to tend to the brood.

This is a new problem for me and would appreciate some more advice.

Should I add some brood frames/nurse bees from my other hives to boost this one?

Thanks

Pinch both and requeen. And add a few frames of bees and brood.