>
> Also, of the 6 packages I received this spring, 3 have superceded.  They
> were SMR queens.  Anyone else having this problem?
> Just wondering!
> Coleene
>


I have also had unusual problems with supersedure/swarming this year.  Three
of six nucs (mixed race) have been trying desperately to supersede, and I
lost two swarms from these hives about two weeks ago.  These 1st year hives
had plenty of space, so should not have swarmed.  Supersedure attempts did
not stop after re-queening the swarmed hives with New World Carniolans. I
also have a second year hive I re-queened with a NW Carniolan in June which
has been trying to supersede.

I heard that others in Vermont have had similar problems this year.  My
suspicion is Coumaphos.  I don't use it, but with Apistan resistance on the
rise (as well as hive beetles), I'm sure that all the nucs I bought this
year were treated with it, and probably the California queen breeders that
are the source for the NWC's also (input, anyone?).  I have read some
analyses of Coumaphos effects on queens.  The bits that I've read don't look
good.

I decided to put the queens and some brood from the affected hives (as a
safety) in nuc boxes, and let the hives hatch new queens.  I plan to watch
for a while if/when the new queens begin laying.  If the new queens are OK,
I'll kill the old queens, and combine the temporary nucs with the main
hives, although I might experiment with two queen hives for a bit.

An observation possibly noteworthy:  I tried a simple (but not very
scientific) experiment.  I took a queen from one of the stronger hives that
was trying to supersede, and placed it on drawn comb in a medium, and then
placed it over an excluder on top of another strong hive that was trying to
supersede.  My thinking was that perhaps the amount of queen essence was an
issue, so two laying queens might alleviate the problem.  No dice.  In fact,
I went back two days after this manipulation, and found lots of eggs in the
medium (and the lower deeps), but also a queen cell.  It seems that the
presence of that queen in the top medium triggered the attendant/nurse bees
to build a queen cell there, but not in the medium below the excluder (where
neither queen had travelled).  Might there be some pheromone trigger coming
from the "defective" queens that prompts queen cell building?

 I don't have much experience running two queen hives, but this seemed odd.
Again, any thoughts?

Todd.

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