[blist]

how many queens have you guys seen in one hive?

had a top bar hive recently swarm, was a little neglected over the winter (we don't really have winters here)

we got in there today to clean things up because we ordered a couple queens...we pinched 3 queens all in one hive....one actually emerged right as we were looking at the comb

we cut out a capped queen cell and no less than 6 queen cups...hive was still jammed pack even after a swarm

I would have done splits but I live in the city and I'm already maxed out on hives allowed...anyway, was pretty fun

 

[tarheit]

Virgin queens.... there can be quite a few especially if they all start emerging about the same time... I've probably seen 6-7 at once out of the cells.

Mated and laying queens... I've seen 3 in one hive for a few weeks until I removed them all (they couldn't lay a good pattern between then). I've seen 2 co-exist for 9 to 12 months.

 

[AR Beekeeper]

I once caught a prime swarm from a colony of mine that had a marked Carniolan queen. In the swarm was the marked queen and 6 virgin queens. I opened the hive and caught 10 more virgins that were in the process of cutting themselves out of their cells. I saw two virgins loose in the colony, so I cut about half a dozen more cells and started taking brood to make splits. I had 12 more Carniolian colonies in the yard and all of them were in the same condition. I have kept Carniolans since 1979, but I have never had as many virgins emerging as I did that spring. I made 60 nucs before I ran out of equipment, and I had circles of 1 and 2 frame nucs sitting all over my backyard.

 

[blist]

wow!

...makes me a little nervous now as my goal is to re-queen this hive, I have the new queen sitting here ready to go...today was pinch day...was hoping to put new queen (still in cage) in there tomorrow

I guess I will see how they react to her.

 

[flyingbrass]

I've seen 2 in some of mine. Pulled out a marked one to requeen and bam there is another one on the same frame but unmarked.

 

[Daniel Y]

My record for queen cells in a single hive was set just the other day with 35. I have a hive working on cells right now that I expect to put that to shame. I have had 45 grafts in a cell builder at once. 32 made it back out. I made that entire cell builder queenless 5 days ago.we will start searching for and removing cells today. In total I am now expecting over 400 cells from 14 hives plus 8 5 frame nucs. we just jumped from 21 hives to 32 betwen nucs that queens where moved to and their queenless original hives.