Replacing Queens too soon

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jonnybeegood

Drone Bee
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Are some people worried for no reason about being Q less?
I just united two hives, the bottom BB had a new Q laying very well, the top BB was a hive i have checked for 6 weeks with no Q, both were Q less at the same time but one Q cell was successful, one wasnt. I united them with newspaper & a QE still on the bottom BB. They were left 4 days.
I came to sort the structure out as it was now 2 BB's & 5 supers. All seemed well so i thought i would shake out the top BB in front of the hive. When i got to the fourth frame i spotted a large Q!! Unmarked & not laying yet, the bottom BB Q was marked so i knew it was a different one. I kept her as a spare, but i would like to know how come the bees were all getting along with these two Queens & wouldnt they try to kill each other through the QE? This Queen has gone 6 weeks without laying as yet, i see some people wanting to requeen after just 2/3 weeks, i think maybe this shows dont give up & buy another Queen, if your bees arent nasty theres a good chance theres a Q in there somewhere. I had one last Autumn that took 6 weeks but i seen that one & knew it was there, i had been through the above hive 4 times & never seen this Queen.
 
They sure are good at hiding! I have a nuc .....made on 7.5 15 with a queen cell. Queen emerged....seen on 29.5.15...... No eggs ever seen. Given another test frame last Saturday as hadn't seen the queen for a while....nothing...no queen cells. Had a look today....still can't find the queen! Still no queen cells..no eggs nada! I am getting seriously annoyed with this queen! If I find her...I will cage her!
 
They sure are good at hiding! I have a nuc .....made on 7.5 15 with a queen cell. Queen emerged....seen on 29.5.15...... No eggs ever seen. Given another test frame last Saturday as hadn't seen the queen for a while....nothing...no queen cells. Had a look today....still can't find the queen! Still no queen cells..no eggs nada! I am getting seriously annoyed with this queen! If I find her...I will cage her!

when I seen this queen on the frame I spotted her straight away, no idea how I missed her during the checks, maybe she was moving around the bottom of the box.
 
when I seen this queen on the frame I spotted her straight away, no idea how I missed her during the checks, maybe she was moving around the bottom of the box.

God they can be hard to find, clipped and marked two yesterday, had to go through twice to find them both in both nucs , but beautifull long slender black beauties.

Another also found at second attempt again... But.. So hard to catch , between sweat , propolised fingers ( they are producing some amount in some of my hives currently ) and the pace she was running on the frame at, anyway caught her in a clip, got her into tube, only for her to escape and run up my arm and then back into the hive.... Frustrating :D
 
i would like to know how come the bees were all getting along with these two Queens & wouldnt they try to kill each other through the QE?.

All depends. At an out apiary visit on Sunday, the rather elderly beekeeper showed us his queen breeding apiary. There was a stack of 3 BBs separated by CBs between each of them with a small 3" square section of steel sheet QE taped over the central holes in each case. Each week he moves the bottom BB above the other two so as to help the queen in the new top box to benefit from the convected warmth rising from below via the QE segments as that helps the queen to lay. He has been doing this for years and they live quite happily until he is ready to separate them to separate hives. Hence, no the queens will not kill each other as they have better things to do. Incidentally he had several other multi-nuc boxes with mated queens all going like the clappers. Two of them had 4 nucs side-by-side each with an entrance pointing to a different compass point. A real education. Hope this answers that question.
 
All depends. At an out apiary visit on Sunday, the rather elderly beekeeper showed us his queen breeding apiary. There was a stack of 3 BBs separated by CBs between each of them with a small 3" square section of steel sheet QE taped over the central holes in each case. Each week he moves the bottom BB above the other two so as to help the queen in the new top box to benefit from the convected warmth rising from below via the QE segments as that helps the queen to lay. He has been doing this for years and they live quite happily until he is ready to separate them to separate hives. Hence, no the queens will not kill each other as they have better things to do. Incidentally he had several other multi-nuc boxes with mated queens all going like the clappers. Two of them had 4 nucs side-by-side each with an entrance pointing to a different compass point. A real education. Hope this answers that question.

Forgot to mention that the only entrance to the stack is at the bottom. Consequently any foragers wanting to get to the top box have to travel up through the lower two boxes. No bother!!!!
 
Forgot to mention that the only entrance to the stack is at the bottom. Consequently any foragers wanting to get to the top box have to travel up through the lower two boxes. No bother!!!!

I guess this is how you do multiple colony hives....I have read about them and someone else was asking how you do it. We were thinking if you did splits and the splits made queens....they would all be related so the workers could share supers. We couldn't work out how you would accommodate the drones though.
 
All depends. At an out apiary visit on Sunday, the rather elderly beekeeper showed us his queen breeding apiary. There was a stack of 3 BBs separated by CBs between each of them with a small 3" square section of steel sheet QE taped over the central holes in each case. Each week he moves the bottom BB above the other two so as to help the queen in the new top box to benefit from the convected warmth rising from below via the QE segments as that helps the queen to lay. He has been doing this for years and they live quite happily until he is ready to separate them to separate hives. Hence, no the queens will not kill each other as they have better things to do. Incidentally he had several other multi-nuc boxes with mated queens all going like the clappers. Two of them had 4 nucs side-by-side each with an entrance pointing to a different compass point. A real education. Hope this answers that question.

I did wonder if it might encourage the
 
All depends. At an out apiary visit on Sunday, the rather elderly beekeeper showed us his queen breeding apiary. There was a stack of 3 BBs separated by CBs between each of them with a small 3" square section of steel sheet QE taped over the central holes in each case. Each week he moves the bottom BB above the other two so as to help the queen in the new top box to benefit from the convected warmth rising from below via the QE segments as that helps the queen to lay. He has been doing this for years and they live quite happily until he is ready to separate them to separate hives. Hence, no the queens will not kill each other as they have better things to do. Incidentally he had several other multi-nuc boxes with mated queens all going like the clappers. Two of them had 4 nucs side-by-side each with an entrance pointing to a different compass point. A real education. Hope this answers that question.

I did wonder if it might encourage the Q in the bottom BB to swarm if she knows there is another Q in the hive? I think it may be different having a CB with a small meshed hole then a full QE maybe? Funny how the bees seemed happy with two Queens, maybe because one wasn't laying yet? it all just seems odd to me, if they were acting as two separate hives with a board inbetween I could understand it but for the workers to travel in the hive between two Q's seems odd, unless eventually they would have killed one?
 
I did wonder if it might encourage the Q in the bottom BB to swarm if she knows there is another Q in the hive? I think it may be different having a CB with a small meshed hole then a full QE maybe? Funny how the bees seemed happy with two Queens, maybe because one wasn't laying yet? it all just seems odd to me, if they were acting as two separate hives with a board inbetween I could understand it but for the workers to travel in the hive between two Q's seems odd, unless eventually they would have killed one?

All 3 queens in the stack were quite clearly laying like stink. All were clipped anyway.
 
Ive just been in the hive i put this Queen in that i found when doing the uniting, it looks like she started laying & now theyre superseding her?? There was some brood, some capped, 3Q cells, open but charged & starting to be drawn out, no eggs & didnt see the Q. I have no idea why they have done this but there must be a reason.
 

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