Adding a second laying queen

FRAMEshift · May 12, 2011, 09:11:19 AM

It would be great to have two queens to speed the buildup of a hive. More eggs means more bees means more honey. So what would happen if I combine a small nuc with its own laying queen into an existing queenright hive? Will a hive kill an introduced laying queen? Will this method work to speed the buildup of a hive?

Michael Bush · May 12, 2011, 10:47:19 AM

>Will a hive kill an introduced laying queen?

Maybe.

> Will this method work to speed the buildup of a hive?

Maybe.

I've had the best luck just putting an excluder between two brood chambers. They raise a queen on the other side and I usually end up with a two queen hive.

http://bushfarms.com/beestwoqueenhive.htm

FRAMEshift · May 12, 2011, 12:16:38 PM

Thanks for that link. I had not seen that page. On the subject of putting queen cells away from the brood nest to get two queens, you say:

There are a few different tactics you can use to accomplish this. One would be the low equipment, low labor, less reliable method of just raising queen cells and putting them in the top box to emerge. This often, but not always results in a two queen hive with minimal effort. You can increase the odds by putting a queen excluder somewhere in the middle of the boxes.

When you say a queen excluder increases the odds, are you implying that the existing queen will kill the virgin queens? I was more worried about the other bees than the queen. I know that virgin queens will kill each other, but I did not know a laying queen would do the same.

Michael Bush · May 12, 2011, 11:02:08 PM

>When you say a queen excluder increases the odds, are you implying that the existing queen will kill the virgin queens?

Laying queens are usually not looking to kill anyone.

> I was more worried about the other bees than the queen. I know that virgin queens will kill each other, but I did not know a laying queen would do the same.

She won't. Keeping them separate just works more reliably.

VolunteerK9 · May 13, 2011, 11:19:49 AM

Cool question.

Ive thought about trying a 2 deep/2 queen hive with an excluder between the deeps then split it in the Fall for wintering. Maybe next year.....

FRAMEshift · May 13, 2011, 08:02:55 PM

Quote from: Michael Bush on May 12, 2011, 10:47:19 AM
I've had the best luck just putting an excluder between two brood chambers. They raise a queen on the other side and I usually end up with a two queen hive.

Can you remove the excluder once there are two queens? So that you have two queens in a unified hive?

Michael Bush · May 13, 2011, 11:28:20 PM

>Can you remove the excluder once there are two queens? So that you have two queens in a unified hive?

If you don't they will probably keep both queens. If you remove it one will usually disappear before long.