>
>  While I have never seen 2 queen hives,  I know others have
>
> It in no way answers your questions (which were very good and similar to
my own) but I couldn't help but tell my 2 queen hive story:

While in undergrad I was in the NCSU beeyard. Dr. Tarpy told me and another
classmate to go through a single deep hive while the rest of the class
watched. We were looking for abnormalities and seeing how we inspected a
colony. He asked us to find the queen, and politely pitted us against each
other to see who could find her first. A few minutes later the other
classmate said confidently "I found the queen." At that moment, I looked
down on the frame I had in my hands, and dead center was a plump queen. I
told my classmate "you're mistaken, I found the queen." Both of us thought
the other was either a sore looser, or was mistaking a drone for a queen.
We compared frames, and sure enough both of us had a queen. Dr. Tarpy
looked at us and said "Tie?" His assistant didn't care who won, caged one
of the queens immediately, happy to have a spare queen when in need of a
split.

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