mixing phermones

[SgtMaj]

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?

[JP]

 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

[Michael Bush]

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.

[SgtMaj]

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?

[Michael Bush]

>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".