In a message dated 3/29/99 12:49:35 PM Eastern Standard Time, [log in to unmask]
writes:

> When looking at my colonies this weekend I saw something new, after 25
>  years among bees.  In a rather small but flourishing colony I saw two
>  perfectly good large queens on the same side of a comb, only about three
>  inches apart from each other.  I have heard that often when combining
>  two-queen colonies the queens co-exist for a time, and finally I saw
>  proof of this possibility.  Both queens were completely calm, as were
>  the workers around them.  It was a wonderful sight.

   I saw a similar situation today in a dingaling colony, that I must have
combined last fall, though I don't remember it (and that is unusual).

    The bees had dwindled to three frames of bees, and one frame of brood. The
first side I looked at have a big fat queen in the center, and quite a bit of
fairly good sealed brood on it. I turned it over, and lo and behold, another
fat queen was doing her thing on the opposite side. They were not
mother/daughter; both were mature queens.

   Interestingly the back-side queen had quite a bit of chalkbrood, so I did
not hesitate to eliminate her. I've seen very little chalkbrood this spring.
There was not a single cell of chalkbrood on the first side. Apparently
neither queen had crossed over the frame lately.

    The best part was that this was the only dingaling colony in the yard. The
rest are coming along nicely. There was that nice gentle hiss of the yard that
tells me that a flow is on......

[log in to unmask]     Dave Green  Hemingway, SC  USA
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