-----Original Message-----
From: George Styer <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 28 September 1998 23:53
Subject: 2 queen mystery
 
 
 
>
>Blew the bees out of the supers this weekend and I just happen to spot an
>UNMARKED queen walking across the topbars. So now I look at the frames of
>what used to be 100% sealed honey and there is brood of all stages on 2 of
>the frames.
 
Yes this is possible for a virgin queen to get through the QX but unlikely.
More likely there is a small entrance into the hive above the QX (a
splintered edge off of the super box allowing access or similar).  This has
happened to me on a few occasions over the last 20 years.
 
Huh? A quick look into the deeps below the QX reveales that the
>MARKED queen is indeed still there and laying.
>
>So how do I end up with 2 laying queens, one on each side of the QX? I can
>not offer up an explaination of how a laying queen could end up above the
>excluder since there could not have been any eggs up there from which to
>raise a queen. Is it possible that this queen hatched below (possibly a
>supercedure), mated and then squeezed her skinny butt through the QX to
>live happily ever after up in the honey supers? If so, why wouldn't she
>have destroyed he old MARKED queen?
 
 
Under superceedure conditions it is possible for two queens to live side by
side for some months.  Over here in England I have seen two queens in a hive
in the spring both laying.  These must have been living together since the
previous autumn possibly as long a six months and these colonies usually
build up fairly rapidly.  The older queen has always disappeared by late
spring.  Without marking queens it would be almost impossible to realise
this was going on.
 
The Snelgrove system of swarm control is a form of two-queen system whereby
the bees mingle between the two queens, one will be above theQX and one
below, this system is fairly commonly used here.
 
Hope this contains some suggestions for you
 
Peter Dalby, England