Did she jump or was she pushed part 2??

[jojohoneybee]

(New beekeeper, first hive)

My first year at beekeeping and everything was going according to plan.  The inspection before last found the hive full bees and both brood chambers full.  We put a queen excluder on and a super.

Two weeks later and the super is untouched.  A few bees crawling around but no attempt at drawing it out.  So we went deep and I found two queen cells on the of one of the the frames in the top brood box.  It had nothing in it but was long enough that I though something was going on.  Then I saw a queen but it wasn't mine!!  No mark.  There were still a lot of bees in there.  So now I wonder?

1.  Did my queen take off with a swarm??

2.  What do I do now?  Re-queen or let her be(e)?

Thanks for any advice!

jojohoneybee

[asprince]

1.  Did my queen take off with a swarm??
Maybe. They could have superseded her or the paint just wore off.

2.  What do I do now?  Re-queen or let her be(e)?

How is the brood pattern? If she is laying good, why replace her with an unknown queen?

Steve 

[Kathyp]

there is no magic in a purchased queen.  if you have one, let her do her thing.

if you are going to use a queen excluder, let them start working the super first, then add excluder.  you may get some brood up there, but it will hatch out and not be a problem.

[annette]

Your hive may have swarmed due to no room for the queen to lay. Placing the queen excluder on top of 2 very full brood boxes could definitely cause them to swarm also. They may be making more queen cells to swarm again.

Remove the queen excluder, open up the broodnest to make sure the present queen has room to lay eggs, by placing empty frames in between full frames of brood.

I am also new at this. This is my third year and so lets hear from more experienced beekeepers. But I have learned something. I do not use queen excluders any more because I want my queen to go anywhere they want to and I like her to have as much room as she wants to lay.

Hope this helps some
annette

[Flygirl]

Hi JoJo ~

The same thing was / is happening in one of my hives.  I removed the queen excluder today & plan to do what Annette suggested & add the empty frames between the full frames in the brood nest.

Good luck ~ FG

[tillie]

Best use I've found for the queen excluder so far is as a drain rack for cut comb squares  :evil: :evil: :evil:

Linda T in Atlanta

[indypartridge]

Hi JoJo,

I think your questions have already been well-answered, so I just want to say "Hello and Welcome!"

This is a great forum to learn more about bees and beekeeping. Nice, friendly folk.

I recommend that you update your profile to include your location. Much of beekeeping is "location specific", and we will be better able to answer your questions if we know where you are.

[jojohoneybee]

Thank you all.  I will take the excluder off today and give them a week to move up and see what the new queen is doing.  I will let you know.  I will also fill out my profile.

Thanks again.