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I started last year with 4 hives just got a package from Gardner, Spell Bee on
friday amd installed them on the same day. I gave them one frame with drawn comb. Looked at hem today Saturday and there is the queen laying eggs as I pulled this frame. Not strange yet untill I look at the queen cage and there is the queen still in the cage. Guess the shook the old queen when shaking for the package. Has anyone ever had this same thing happen?

 

[beekeeper1756]

Count yourself lucky. See if you can make two colonies out of this package.

 

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beekeeper1756,
I had a queenless hive so the caged queen got put in there today. Some times things work out better than planned but not often enough

 

[AmericasBeekeeper]

It is not as rare as you might think. Most package sellers do not run their bees through an excluder, just a big funnel chute. Healthy bees can have swarm queens plus the old girl, occasionally they will start a replacement queen and keep the old girl out of respect or whatever, moral is two queens can be in one hive. This might explain the exceptional hives with 3 and four brood supers and claims of thousands of eggs laid every day. If the nurse bees and queens' retinue keep the two girls busy and apart, they coexist in the same hive. It is probably not possible with a queen from a package and a caged queen probably from a different hive, someone is gonna die!