New package with queen outside hive.

767 Views 1 Reply 2 Participants Last post by Rader Sidetrack, Apr 22, 2014

Delightfarm

Discussion Starter · #1 · Apr 22, 2014

I am a first time beekeeper and just installed my first package Sat evening 4/19/14. On Sunday evening I noticed a ball of bees about the size of a golf ball outside the hive. I took a stick and separated them and noticed a queen at the bottom of the pile. She was still alive but moving a bit slow, maybe injured. I took her and opened up the hive and put her back inside quickly. After I closed everything up I realized I should have looked at the queen cage to be sure she was released but I just assumed it was her. Yesterday around noon time I looked again and there again was a clump of bees outside the hive. I separated the clump and there the queen was again but she was dead. I did open up the hive and looked at my queen cage and she was NOT released. This made me very happy, but also confused. Do you think I had a 2nd loose queen in my package? Has this happened to anyone else?

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Rader Sidetrack

· Premium Member

Joined Nov 30, 2011

11,921 Posts

#2 · Apr 22, 2014

Welcome to Beesource!

Yes, while it hasn't happened me there are other similar threads here. If a package has a queen in a cage and another queen loose with the rest of the bees the odds are that there was an unintended queen loose when the bees were shaken into the package.