Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => REQUEENING & RAISING NEW QUEENS => Topic started by: ArmucheeBee on January 29, 2011, 10:30:29 pm
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Last year at this same time I was inspecting for spring and found two queens in one hive--one marked, one not. I left them and eventually only had the marked Q by April--do not know what happened to the unmarked.
Today, I again found a hive with the exact situation.
Both marked queens in these two hives are duaghters of Q's from the FatBeeMan here in Georgia. They like to make queens. I made 5 spits off one of these hives last year--they will swarm in a second.
I'll leave this one and see what happens, but with a bad fall and almost no drones in the fall I don't see how this Q could be well-mated. So I may take her out so she does not kill my good Q. They were on adjacent frames side-by-side.
Anyone else having double vision queens?
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I find two queens in about 1 in 20 hives. Maybe a tad more.
Never really noticed it until I started using full size hives for grafting after pulling out the queen, then later grafting into the same hive.
Had me baffled the first time the bees refused to make any queens cells. I went in the hive, pulled the queen, grafted, and never even thought about two queen colonies until that first happened.
I think many beekeepers just quit after finding the first queen. And then close up the colony. Or they glance over the frame looking for a marked queen, and miss the one that is not marked.
I think it happens more than most realize.
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i agree. i found the marked Q put that frame back and before putting that box back on I wanted to make sure she was not in a position to be crushed and pulled out the wrong frame and found the new queen. i'd liked to save her but we had no drones this fall so I doubt she is fertile. i may insert an excluder and find out for sure. did not think of that last year. there is enough honey stored for hosting bees top and bottom of an excluder.