Two queens, need help and advice!

Ocean · March 16, 2010, 09:20:35 PM

Hello, everyone well today was a great weather, and i wanted to check how the hives are doing. Turns out one of the hives has two queens, I'm not sure which one is laying but i"ve already seen eggs and some capped brood. I'm thinking what should i do?
I do have an empty TBH and another Regular standard hive. I never split a hive, i never had two queens and really in need of advice. My TBH died over the winter :(, so I would love to give it another try and fill it with bees.

Please help.

Thank you,
Ocean

doak · March 16, 2010, 09:35:17 PM

Use a nuc box if you have one. if not use a regular 8 or 10 frame box. If you can locate the queens on separate frames, take a frame with one of the queens on and put it in the nuc/box. Put another frame that was closest to the frame the queen was on. then two with honey and one empty. Or if using a full size box fill the rest with foundation/drawn comb.

If you can get a good look at both queens and one seems to be more slim than the other, that is the one that is not laying, or not so much.

You could also leave as is, if it is a supercedure, some time they will allow the mother queen to hang around till the new queen proves up. Doesn't sound like a maybe swarm situation. :)doak

Ocean · March 16, 2010, 10:05:43 PM

I don't have a nuc box i guess i will use a new hive box for a while for them to multiple, but after they established a good population how do i transfer it into TBH?

doak · March 16, 2010, 10:24:49 PM

I don't see any problem with putting them in the TBH to begin with. Just use a follower board.
That is the only reason I mentioned using a regular hive body. :)doak

Ocean · March 16, 2010, 10:33:14 PM

What is a follower board?

doak · March 16, 2010, 11:36:58 PM

Just a solid movable board that fills in from wall to wall and top to bottom.
If you want to put 2 or 3 frames of bees and brood in with 3 or 4 frames with honey, pollen, foundation,etc. Not enough to completely fill the hive, close off the excess space to conserve heat.
After it warms up and and they expand then open it all the way up. Fill in with what ever you are using. Foundation frames, drawn comb and let-um go for it. :)doak

Ocean · March 17, 2010, 12:26:29 AM

Doak, thank you very much for the time, but i'm a bit confused if you can clarify it would be extremely helpful. First i'm confused as to when should i actually do this procedure. Because right now the hive doesn't have so many bees, maybe 3 frames of bees and only one has brood (and i wouldn't say its fully filled), but like i said it has 2 queens. How long should i wait to split them? that is my first question. Second is when i do split them you said i can use my TBH hive right away, but how am i suppose to place regular fames into TBH, it just wouldn't work. Do i just drop the bees into the hive with the queen? is that what you mean? I'm also still confused about the movable board, i guess you refferring to a divider? because right now TBH is extremely large, so you want me to place a dividing board to make the TBH hive smaller for the split.?

BULLSEYE BILL · March 17, 2010, 01:44:06 AM

All things beekeeping are local. In other words, you need to do this at the proper time for your location. I could not do this for another month here in Ks. I would wait until you have a nectar flow and drones flying, by that time it is safe to make splits.

Two queens hives are not normally found very often because we stop looking for the queen once we find her. Having a small hive it is much easier to see them both. I wonder how you can say with any certainty that one is not laying for sure? She is obviously last years hatchling. If they only have three frames of bees, the hive could use the extra queen to give them a good boost in the early part of the season. They haven't killed one yet so I would assume that they will keep with the status quo until they become over populated and then swarm.

If a split is in your future plans, I would wait a few weeks yet, then take half the frames of brood, stores, bees, and one queen and make a new hive. If you are going to leave the split in the same yard you might want to shake most of the bees into the new split. The older bees that have been flying will go back to the old location leaving you with mostly young vigorous bees in the new hive.

JP · March 17, 2010, 10:24:57 AM

I'm with Bill on this one, besides the bees will right things themselves if they don't like the idea of having two queens.

I would leave things alone but would consider marking both of them to keep track of them.

If they decide to keep both, you wind up with a cool hive with two queens you can tell us all about.

If they are both good layers, prepare for extraordinary growth in this hive. Keep extra boxes handy, you may need them!

...JP

Ocean · March 17, 2010, 11:11:35 AM

Thank you BILL and JP. Ok I will wait for a couple of week until i see more bees, more brood and more stores. Last season I did not get too much honey from any of my hives. I would like to ask how do you guys add your supers or more deeps? and when? Do most people do 2 Deeps than add Supers? or should i just go with Supers ontop of 1 Deep? dividing them with a queen excluder.

I'm never sure when to do this, because everytime is different, about what time should i be doing this? and how many supers do you guys add at once? i seen one local beekeeper add all 3-4 empty supers right away around April, he then took those supers off on JULY 4th full of honey.. And left the rest of the season for bees to store for winter.. Is this a good technique? should I in April just add 4 supers to each of my hive with a queen excluder and wait till July 4th and take them all off? How do you guys do it?

Thank you.

doak · March 17, 2010, 01:26:21 PM

With your location I'd not rush it. Like advised above, they may rectify themselves.
Thanks for the correction on top bar system. Must have been thinking of a "long" box. :)doak

Ocean · March 17, 2010, 07:08:08 PM

Doak, thank you very much for all the posts I'll wait for now, but I do have an empty TBH and couple of regular ones which i would love to fill this season (without buying a package, i'm too late for that anyways)

Kathyp · March 17, 2010, 08:48:23 PM

put yourself on a swarm list or two. it's the easiest way to expand cheaply. craiglist works for me. there is the list here also.

Ocean · March 18, 2010, 01:38:57 AM

Kathy, i'm not aware of what you are talking about what list? how does it work? what does it cost?

JP · March 18, 2010, 10:05:08 AM

Quote from: Ocean on March 18, 2010, 01:38:57 AM
Kathy, i'm not aware of what you are talking about what list? how does it work? what does it cost?

You can get your name added to "swarm" lists for free by calling exterminators, the fire department, police departments, zoos, code enforcement entities, etc...

They call you when a swarm is resting on a tree limb and such.

You hustle down to where it is, shake the swarm into a box and bingo! you have a new hive.

...JP

Kathyp · March 18, 2010, 11:00:07 AM

http://forum.beemaster.com/removal/swarmmap.php

here is the one on this board. free. just be ready with equipment. swarms wait for no man....or woman :-)

ArmucheeBee · March 31, 2010, 12:15:30 AM

I discovered one of my hives with two queens in February. Both are fat, but not as much brood as my single-Q hives. I plan on leaving mine alone until they build up real well-mid-April. I though about leaving them together just to see what happens too.

annette · March 31, 2010, 12:18:38 AM

I called the Dept of Agriculture here in Placerville and got onto their swarm list.

Bee Happy · March 31, 2010, 05:32:02 AM

I had the dog police (dogcatcher) ask me if I picked up swarms; they get a couple swarm calls a year too (they don't do swarms).