Two Queens, One Hive.

[Solomon Parker]

Get a load of this!

http://parkerfarms.blogspot.com/2012...-one-hive.html

Do you think this is something I can breed for?

[beyondthesidewalks]

It happened to me once, but only once. That hive was a boomer. Wish I could duplicate it also.

[Solomon Parker]

I'm thinking I should go split it up. I think I'd rather have two than one at this point in the year. No worries about queens, I already have what I need!

[adam@azapiaries]

Acording to Dr Larry Conner, 10% of all overwintered colonies of bees have two queens.(personal communication). He believed that in most cases, it was mother/daughter replacement. Nontheless, A great photo!

[tsk]

I am very newbee-ish at queen spotting, but are there 3 in there (2 right next to each other on the right)?

[Solomon Parker]

Where in reference to the marked queen?

[Solomon Parker]

I went ahead and split them. I'm still expecting the older queen to be superseded any time, but I need more hives to meet my goals for the year. The older queen was on the same frame, the newer queen was two frames over. I split the hive half and half and put them each in ten frame nucs, stacked up to receive returning foragers. This is the second best hive in the yard, I think they'll both do fine as long as the older queen is still productive.

[tsk]

One of the bees in the circle at about 1:00 from the marked queen. Maybe I'm just seeing two bee there on top of each other or some weird stuff in the comb making the bee appear longer..

Where in reference to the marked queen?

[Solomon Parker]

That's probably it. Three queens would be pretty cool.

[Adrian Quiney WI]

It happened to me last year, sister queens. Sadly there was only one left when the hive was big enough, and the weather was warm enough to divide. Good for you Solomon, timing is everything.

[Card's Honey Farm]

It happened to me once, but only once. That hive was a boomer. Wish I could duplicate it also.

There was a study done where they would put 7 queens in one hive! This was done to provide a ton of young nurse bees for the production of royal jelly. One 'multiple queen' hive supported 6-10 royal jelly producing colonies. They performed "micro surgery" on the queens to remove part of their mandibles so they could not kill each other. Just goes to show us that we should always challenge our beliefs.

[throrope]

Jim Bobb told me about a comb honey method where you put a one deep hive above a two deep hive separated by two excluders to keep queens apart and super above both. I expect you'll need another excuder below the super and a top entrance for the top hives drones. He said with the excessive numbers and tight space for stores the comb fills fast and complete, but the hive must be closely watched to pull full comb and avoid swarming. I may try that this year with a split or small hive.

[lakebilly]

Is it possible that sisters can tolerate each other if they have mated?