Brand new to bee keeping and I decided to go with a two queen hive. I forgot to check the queens when I hived the bees as this was my first hive. The guy I purchased my bees from told me to wait for four days to release the queens. When I did go one was pretty well dried up and the other was fine so I pulled the cork and put a marshmallow in the hole.
My question is, is it to late to put a second queen in or shall I just pull the barrier and go with a single queen?
I was reading about putting a queen in alcohol to use as a lure. Can I use this queen for that even with her being desiccated?
I got a package from another supplier and both those queens are fine.
Setting up a two queen hive is a tricky proposition. Not something I recommend for a beginner. If you really want one, the simplest way is to get a hive going well and put an excluder between two brood boxes. The other side will usually raise a queen and you now have a two queen hive. Introducing two unrealted queens is the most difficult way to do it...
http://www.bushfarms.com/beestwoqueenhive.htm
You can put that dead queen in alcohol to use a lure later.
If you have at least two frames with eggs in your 'good' hive, then you can take one and put it in the other hive and let them raise a new queen themselves. It's easy. In a month they'll be going great guns.
Thanks for the input. I gave the dead queen a Lord Nelson funeral and and decided to go with a single queen in that hive. I took out the excluder and the barrier.