What happens if I have a queen in the upper deep and she is laying well. I also have a queen cell that is being built and is almost capped. That cell is in the lower deep along with about 60 percent of the bees. Could I put a queen excluder in the middle of the two boxes and either end up with a two queen colony or a new queen? If she comes back after she hatches could I just catch her and use her for another hive?
ajm
My guess would be if they supercede her they could ball the old queen, but then again, if they don't you could end up with two queens. Never tried it before. I hear two queen hives stacked atop each other can be real beasts to inspect though, could have 200,000 in one colony, so I have heard.
...JP
You might loose a swarm even if you use the excluder. I'd pull that frame with the queen cell and start a nuc (5 frames) or a mating nuc(3 frames). After the new queen is laying you can decide what to do with her.
How old is the queen you have now?
Jim
I would take the frame with the queen cell on it and make a nuc with it now and hopefully stop the swarm urge. I dont know about the exculder thing. keeping the old queen in the upper deep doesnt mean they wont swarm after the other queen hatches. We can do what we want but the bees dont have to cooperate :roll:
I should have mentioned that the hive was a package of April 4th. So the queen was new to me with this package. They still have alot of room to grow in the two deeps.
ajm
I like the idea of making the nucs with the queen cells. Good to save them in case you need them.
Annette
Hive that are swarming will make much more than one queen cell. My guess is it's a supersedure. I'd let them work it out. The queen is probably failing and doing a split will just mean you have one hive with a good virgin queen and one with a failing queen. The virgin will, of course mate and hopefully work things out there, but what is the one with the failing queen to do?
What I was kind of hoping would happen would be that I would have a two queen hive. Not giving thought of supercedure. Could this become a two queen hive that would rear more brood? Or should I just remove the excluder and let happens what does?
I am kind of an experimenter (sp)? and just wondering what would happen.
ajm
There are a couple of hypotheticals at play here. Your bees may be superceding your present queen as you say you have seen a supercedure cell that appears to be ripe, but then again, you mention your queen is laying her little fanny off.
She has lots of worker brood? Very good solid pattern? I would suspect if this is true they wouldn't try and supercede her.
Are you certain you're not seeing swarm cells? What you described was a supercedure cell, but I am confused by what you are reporting.
If they supercede your queen and make a new queen and you place a queen excluder between the two deeps, and your older queen starts to fail and they supercede her, you could wind up with two virgins awaiting to mate, or one queen and I don't know about this scenario because I have never been there, just a guess, if one queen doesn't add up, the bees could leave one set up for the other, by simply going through the excluder. Old timers can fill in the blanks here.
If I were to set up a two queen system, I would start with two mated queens, but this is me.
Since you like to experiment, you could really have some fun with this, at the very worst it could be a really good learning experience for you.
And yes, you could always remove the excluder and let nature take its course.
I look forward to hearing other replies, very interesting post.
Decisions, decisions. ;)
...JP
I am not sure you could ask for anything more from the laying that is being done. The pattern looks good and there is alot of worker brood and some not alot but some drone brood. All things appear to be going very well with the origional queen.
ajm
Quote from: ajm on May 18, 2008, 12:47:52 AM
I am not sure you could ask for anything more from the laying that is being done. The pattern looks good and there is alot of worker brood and some not alot but some drone brood. All things appear to be going very well with the origional queen.
ajm
Ok, and this is just me, but if I wanted to put the queen excluder on between the two hives and set up a two queen system, I would want to introduce a mated queen in the queenless deep. This way you have order.
Make sense?
...JP
The bottom box has alot of brood, honey/pollen and bees. The queen is in the top box with not as much brood, honey or bees. But enough of all. There is also much more room for her to lay in. There is also some frames to be finished drawn out.
So actually the new queen would be in something of a nuc but in a flurishing hive. ??????
ajm
Ok, but you would have your two queen system.
...JP