2 hives, new as packages in April. 3 year beek.
Inspected my hives today and here is what happened.
Hive 1 has a queen piping. (I LOVE that sound!) I felt that was my cue to leave, so I did.
Hive 2- Lots of drones (or at least way more than hive 1), capped brood, nectar, honey, pollen. The brood nest is spotty. The bees are not acting normal. 10 to 12 swarm cells. So Im standing there looking at all these swarm cells hanging off the bottoms of all these frames and make a decision to cut some off.
Now dont shoot me yet because here is where it gets interesting. I cut off a swarm cell, it comes open and a queen comes scooting out and drops to the ground. Oops. She looks just fine. Nice big one. Walking around.
I then procede to push the frames back in place and pick up the last frame, which I had set aside, and theres another queen. She is smallish. Pretty just the same. Back in she goes.
Closed up the hive and there on the landing board is this big 'ol queen that had hit the ground. Im freaking out! Shes freaking out! She is scurrying all around not knowing what to do. Im probably talking out loud at this point of panic because I dont know what to do. So I let her crawl up on my hand and I opened the top and dropped her in the hive. Now theres 2 queens in there.
If I made a big mistake with any of these actions, please fire away.
#1: Will the 2 queens duke it out or did I just instigate a swarm by putting her back in?
#2: How long do I wait to inspect the hive with the piping queen?