This may sound like a dumb question, but I am curious...
What happens if phermones from a different queen (Queen B) happen to get (strongly) vented into an already strong hive with a perhaps slightly older queen (Queen A)? Will the hive get rid of Queen A, thinking that she had been replaced? Will the hive find Queen B and try to kill her? Will Queen A try to find and kill Queen B? Or would the hive even take notice?
The bees know their queen, if a strange, mated queen enters for whatever reason, they will ball her and kill her, most likely.
In your scenario, queen A would not seek out and kill Queen B, the workers take care of that, besides, virgin queens fight it out with virgin queens, not with mated queens.
...JP
According to Brother Adam, the bees can't tell one laying queen from another at all. I don't know if I agree with that, but I think the differences are greatly exaggerated. Odds are they will do nothing at all.
IF they wouldn't do anything at all, wouldn't it be possible to create synthetic queen phermone that could be used to prevent swarming?
>wouldn't it be possible to create synthetic queen phermone that could be used to prevent swarming?
I can't guarantee that it will prevent swarming, but they make it. You can buy it. It will also prevent them from replacing a lost queen or a failing queen. Mann Lake sells it as "Bee Boost".