Author Topic: 2 Queens?  (Read 2466 times)

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Offline tedh

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2 Queens?
« on: May 28, 2018, 08:06:17 am »
Hey everyone,
   During yesterdays inspections we found one hive, that consists of a bottom board, two 10 frame deeps, a queen excluder, one drawn out 10 frame super, a notched inner cover and a tele cover, that had larva, capped brood and eggs both above and below the excluder!  Are there two queens?  Is the queen somehow able to pass through the excluder?  If there are two queens, how did the one get above the excluder?  Did she squeeze through the bars of the excluder?  Did she enter the hive through the top entrance after mating? The previous inspection was done on 5/17/18 and there were no signs of anything out of the ordinary.  I seem to remember that there may be two queens in a hive more often than we realize as we usually stop looking after finding one.
  We shook the bees off of the super frames into the two bottom deeps and replaced the excluder and the super.  Thinking it over now I wonder if we shouldn't have just set the medium on a bottom board of it's own and created a colony, which would work if there were indeed two queens.  What do you folks think of this situation?  Ted
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Offline Lburou

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Re: 2 Queens?
« Reply #1 on: May 28, 2018, 09:20:00 am »
Two queens are more likely than having a queen small enough to get through the excluder, (of course, there could be a defective spot on the excluder or you have that very rare queen small enough to pass through it).  But, assuming your excluder is okay, how did both locations get a queen?  When did you install the excluder?  JMO  :)
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Offline brooksbeefarm

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Re: 2 Queens?
« Reply #2 on: May 28, 2018, 10:05:44 am »
Was it worker brood or drone brood in the top super? I have seen many times brood in the honey supers (drone brood) from a laying worker. Jack

Offline Lburou

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Re: 2 Queens?
« Reply #3 on: May 28, 2018, 11:06:23 am »
Was it worker brood or drone brood in the top super? I have seen many times brood in the honey supers (drone brood) from a laying worker. Jack
Insightful question Jack, I ASSuMEd it was worker brood.  :)
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Offline tedh

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Re: 2 Queens?
« Reply #4 on: May 28, 2018, 11:44:38 am »
It was worker brood.  Nice clean light colored cappings, so must have been recently capped.  Josh thought he saw a loaded queen cup in the bottom box during the previous inspection which was the reason for this weeks "deep" inspection of that hive.  The only hives that received "deep" inspections this week were hives we thought might have a problem.  The rest we just checked supers and added as needed.

No queen cups or queen cells were found in the deeps, aside from a couple old queen cells that had been opened from the side.

The queen excluder seemed intact so how did the second queen get up there?  If she left the hive to mate through the bottom entrance it seems she would have come back to, and entered, the hive through that same bottom entrance. Correct?

I'd need to check my notes but I think we added the excluders and supers on 5/7/18 but it may have been the week earier.

Maybe there's only one queen and she's dinky, but if so I'll take more like her.  She, or they, are laying up a storm and that hive will need another super, at least, next week.  I misspoke in the original post.  This hive has 2 supers on it, one drawn and one undrawn. They have filled the drawn super with honey, except where the brood is, and are working on the undrawn super.  Ted
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Offline Riverrat

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Re: 2 Queens?
« Reply #5 on: May 28, 2018, 06:24:27 pm »
Mother daughter queens are noted to exist in hives.  I believe it happens more often than not.  My theory is once a queen is found what happens? That's correct we with looking.  Then a case like this comes up and it is discovered.  Just a theory on my part do believe it's more common that what is known. After all bees don't read the same books we do
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Offline apisbees

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Re: 2 Queens?
« Reply #6 on: May 28, 2018, 10:41:59 pm »
Did you put the queen excluder on when you added the honey super? If you did How did a queen get up above the QE? Did you check the bottom of the inner cover for the queen??? If not and she was there She would start to rear brood in the super above the QE. the bees in the brood supers on comb with brood the proper age and with a diminishing queen pheromone presence due to her not walking on the combs, because she is trapped in the top super makes a replacement queen, that fly's out mates and is back in the hive laying.
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Offline tedh

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Re: 2 Queens?
« Reply #7 on: May 28, 2018, 10:59:59 pm »
The excluder was put on when we put the first super on.  How a queen got up there is the question. With eggs above and below the super there's either two queens or one was able to pass through the excluder. I didn't and usually don't inspect this hive, Josh does, i can only assume he checked the inner cover as he usually does.  But then it's back to eggs above and below the excluder.  Two queens or a excluder needing to be changed out.  The excluder looked okay to me but I'll probably change it out next inspection AND look for two queens. If i could get a do over on this I'd do a little more looking around. Its definitely a head scratcher.  Ted

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Offline Bakersdozen

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Re: 2 Queens?
« Reply #8 on: May 29, 2018, 09:20:06 am »
Are the bees using the notched inner cover as an entrance? or is just for air flow? 

Offline tedh

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Re: 2 Queens?
« Reply #9 on: May 29, 2018, 10:59:26 am »
They use both the upper and lower entrances.  Ted
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Offline riverbee

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Re: 2 Queens?
« Reply #10 on: May 29, 2018, 10:49:27 pm »
ted, what type of excluder are you using?

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Offline tedh

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Re: 2 Queens?
« Reply #11 on: May 30, 2018, 06:00:31 am »
Metal bound from Dadant.
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Offline Bakersdozen

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Re: 2 Queens?
« Reply #12 on: May 30, 2018, 07:28:25 am »
They use both the upper and lower entrances.  Ted
Is there any way one of the queens flew out but entered back through the top entrance?

Offline tedh

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Re: 2 Queens?
« Reply #13 on: May 30, 2018, 08:56:41 am »
I wondered about that too.  Left on mating flight and returned to different entrance?
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Offline tedh

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Re: 2 Queens?
« Reply #14 on: June 01, 2018, 06:18:17 pm »
When we found brood in the super last week we shook all the super frames into the bottom deeps (brood chamber) to make sure the queen was out of the supers, put the excuder back in place, replaced the supers and closed it up.  Today?  Queen cells in the super. Not completely drawn, but close.  I didn't see any eggs in the super but did see large larva.  I checked the deeps below the excluder and saw very young larva but no eggs.  Man I just don't know.  I'm half tempted to put the brood, queen cells and a few shakes of bees into a medium nuc and a frame of eggs into the deeps and see what happens.  Any thoughts?  Ted
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Offline Some Day

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Re: 2 Queens?
« Reply #15 on: June 01, 2018, 07:52:50 pm »
Do you have a Snelgrove board to place between the deeps and the super?  If so you could just leave them stacked.

Offline tedh

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Re: 2 Queens?
« Reply #16 on: June 01, 2018, 08:44:13 pm »
No Snelgrove Board.  I think I might do the nuc thing, unless someone sees a problem with that idea.  I'll sleep on it.  Ted
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Offline tecumseh

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Re: 2 Queens?
« Reply #17 on: June 01, 2018, 09:57:46 pm »
I typically make up nucs (it is called the Doolittle method in one of Jay Smith's old books) much In the fashion TedH describes above.  Normally the day after I come back and rip out as many nuns above the excluder as I can, I then remove the excluder and go about my business.  On occasion I have discover queens still in the top box and on other occasion find her huddled outside the box with a small handful cluster of bees.  What I SUSPECT is she flies while I am shaking (brushing the bees downward), flies just a bit and reenters at the top of the stack < I have top entries build into my tops.