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I have a 3 frame Ob. hive with 2 - 9" and 1 - 6" frame.
The first 9" frame is fully drawn and 90% brood, the second 9" frame is about 1/2 drawn and mostly sugar water.
To day when my wife and I got home from work she was looking for the queen and found 2 queens very close together. :scratch:
We can see 99% of this hive and have not seen any queen cells of any kind.
The only area we cant see it between the feeder and the glass.
The new queen is very light in color compared to the older one (dark)
At first the new queen was running all over the place on both sides of the 9" frames.
Just before dark she stoped running and started curling her abdomen like she was trying to lay eggs, but not in cells.
About an hour later she started laying 1-2 eggs every 1/2 hr. she has since increased her laying.
They have been with in 1" of each other several times and just go on like nether one cares.
![20140620_195153.jpg]()
The new queen is over the pencil and the old queen is over my wife's finger.
Any thoughts on HOW, WHY or WHAT TO DO??? :s
The first 9" frame is fully drawn and 90% brood, the second 9" frame is about 1/2 drawn and mostly sugar water.
To day when my wife and I got home from work she was looking for the queen and found 2 queens very close together. :scratch:
We can see 99% of this hive and have not seen any queen cells of any kind.
The only area we cant see it between the feeder and the glass.
The new queen is very light in color compared to the older one (dark)
At first the new queen was running all over the place on both sides of the 9" frames.
Just before dark she stoped running and started curling her abdomen like she was trying to lay eggs, but not in cells.
About an hour later she started laying 1-2 eggs every 1/2 hr. she has since increased her laying.
They have been with in 1" of each other several times and just go on like nether one cares.
The new queen is over the pencil and the old queen is over my wife's finger.
Any thoughts on HOW, WHY or WHAT TO DO??? :s
What you have there is something old beekeepers didn't see much of. Now aday however, it is more common to see this. Your bees apparently did a supersedure on the old queen. But she had enough LOYAL servants to protect her from the virgin when she hatched out. She flew out of the nest, mated, returned, and has began to lay as you have mentioned. Once she has started laying she's not likely to ever want to kill off her mom. The bees will do it in their sweet time when they feel the new queen is ready, or you could pull out the old queen and put her into a nuc of her own and see what happens there. In either case if left alone the bees will sort it out. I know of a guy that had this same thing happen last year in his OH and by winter they got rid of the old queen.
