[beezy12]

I have lost my queen for the 2nd time this season. Got my first bees in Mar., lost a queen (swarmed I guess) end of May....new queen appeared month later and now she is gone as evidenced by no capped brood, no larvae (prev. queen cells and capped drones)....I could wait until she comes back mated as before but I feel maybe this time I should replace. If I do that, I will buy a marked queen but my question is.....if I put the new one in and the old comes flying home, what will happen? Who will supercede? THanks.
Robin

 

[honeyman46408]

If there is a queen in the hive and you dont remove her before installing a new one you will have more than likley wasted your money.

 

[fish_stix]

Before you put a new queen in you need to positively confirm that you have no queen in the hive. If there is one you're wasting money because the bees will kill the new introduced queen. Go through the hive frame by frame and look for the old queen and look for eggs. Also look on the sides of the box and the bottom board. Do you have room for the queen to lay or is that the reason they swarmed?

 

[beezy12]

Yes, I think they swarmed because they were overcrowded. I have added another brood box but a med....not a deep. I never watned more than one hive and was a little nervous about adding another deep....but am learning now that going up with more deeps is what is done to provide room to lay. I am so new at this but have learned so much. Someone kept telling me to add honey supers but obviously that didn't work as I also used an excluder. I hope I am set now wiht a deep, med. and 1 super on top...but I need that queen back

 

[BigDru]

If your bees recently swarmed consider the fact your bees may have produced a new queen that has been out of the hive on mating flights and has been gone during inspection of the hive. After a swarm I firmly believe in a ticture of time before rushing in a new queen. Its amazing how fast a new mated queen will fill the hive up with eggs and brood in different stages once she gets going.