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Two queens in one hive???

4551 Views 4 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  Adrian Quiney WI, 
M
LOng story short, I installed a new package a week and a half ago. I opened the wrong end of the queen cage and she flew away. I thought that she was gone for good but luckily I had another box on the way that got lost in shipping that they gave me for free b/c of the mix up. That box cam on monday so I put THAT queen into my hive as I couldn't find any eggs at the time. Fast forward to yesterday. I checked on the hive and they had still not let the new queen out and were balling pretty tightly around her. I checked the frames and realized that I HAD EGGS!!! So that means my original queen was there. So I took out the new queen in her cage and just let her go thinking they would kill her. They did seem kind of aggressive to her but she still was able to enter the hive. Will they just kill her so my old queen can continue to lay? Will the two queens kill each other leaving me with no queens? And will the precense of a new queen make the old queen stop laying or my workers become less productive? I REALLY hope I didn't screw this up! LOL! I hope they just killed her. THis is my first and only hive.

Amanda
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M

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#2 ·
Lay something in front of the hive and most likely you will see her dead out there pretty soon. I had a swarm queen enter my queen right hive and she was soon out front dead. I guess there is a chance the two queens could kill each other but I am guessing it is more likely the bees will handle her.

Mike
 
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#3 ·
Most likely the two queens will "have it out". The strongest one will survive. Other scenarios are possible. Either way, they will sort it out. Becoming hopelessly queenless is very unlikely because they have eggs available to do an emergency ( like a supersedure ) queen cell. Almost certainly you will end up with a good laying queen. Check in several days and see if there are eggs. Then you know everything is ok.
 
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#4 ·
When requeening with cells we often have two queens in a hive. They seem to get along well and I've found some of them happily laying eggs within inches of each other on the same frame. Wish I knew how to make it happen all the time; would solve a lot of problems! :D
 
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#5 ·
I've done several newspaper combines without a problem. The last one I did didn't work out as I imagined; I checked the hive about a week after the combine there were no eggs, just sealed brood. I could not see a queen. :doh: I can only guess that the duking it out resulted in a dead queen, and a queen that didn't recover. There were no emergency cells. Luckily I had another nuc and the next combine seems to be working out.
It is really difficult when you only have one hive. Having more than one hive gives you many more options. Three of my hives have tried to swarm this year and as a result I've ended up with several nucs. that have been very useful. When this season is over I recommend that the newbies use the off-season to make some nucs using the plans here on Beesource. Then you will face next year with more confidence. The process of splitting an about-to-swarm hive into several nucs is easy, fascinating, satisfying, gives you a sense of accomplishment, and frees you from commercial queen suppliers.
Adrian.
 
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