[Tkacik]

What will happen when the five queens start to come out of their cells when I already have a new queen installed?

My vision is not what it used to be. I've been keeping bees since April, and one of my hives lost the queen pretty early on. I genuinely think she was a weak queen, as her brood was always pretty spotty, but I digress. I moved fresh brood and eggs from my other hive to the queenless hive hoping that they'd make a queen out of them. That hive was also getting ready to swarm, so I swapped in empty frames (and put another deep on it) for the brood frames with swarm cells and fresh eggs. At the time, I couldn't see any larvae in the swarm cells. Now all of those and a few emergency cells that I didn't see prior are capped... The new queen just came out of her cage and is already laying.

This particular hive and colony has given me trouble from the start with a weak queen and odd comb pattern compared to the "good child" next to it with a good laying queen and nice and neat comb.

 

[Vance G]

If you see the new queen laying eggs, destroy the cells or there will be a supercedure or at least the death of your new queen at the hands of a virgin. Normally when I see supercedure cells when I have requeened a colony or made a split, I know the caged queen failed to be accepted and was killed. That is why I introduce the cage within minutes of making the split because once cells are started, the bees are more likely to reject the caged queen. I also find, detailed inspections of hives with newly introduced queens often results in their being killed. For that reason, I check to see if cages are empty after three full days and release the queen is she is still caged, but with as little disturbance as possible. I do not pull frames and check further after ten days to two weeks. Nothing to be done sooner than that anyway. If the split fails, don't try to requeen, recombine with donor or a weak colony. They are now old bees, the least likely to accept a new queen. This is my philosophy, it is what works best for me at my location.

 

[Tkacik]

Thank you very much for your reply. I appreciate you taking the time to help me on this.
Unfortunately when I went in later today to handle the queen cells at the advice of another local beekeeper, I watched the old bees murder the new queen. I suppose that solves that.
I will absolutely take your advice for the future. I did leave the hive unattended for three days, and I don't know how I missed queen cells, I did see one torn open on the side when I went in the second time today. I suspect that if that hive fails, my other hive is currently strong enough that I will be able to split it in a few weeks without too much stress. I'll be back for advice when I get there.