Theodore V. Fischer wrote David Eyre wrote: > Classic! Obviously the swarm queen wasn't up to snuff, so the bees were in > the process of superscedure, as you must have had two queens in that hive. > Question? Which one did you pinch? > When a queen is not working properly it is vital that the hive is > watched carefully to establish the problem before jumping in to requeen. > Often a superscedure queen is better than a bought queen, as all the hives > effort is going into just one cell. David is absolutely correct. Bees will never accept an interloper when they're in the process of raising their own replacement. Don't blame the queen supplier for a perfectly natural phenomenum. I find that supercedure occurs not only after swarming (very common then), but also after new packages are hived and off to a seemingly good start. I have several times made plans to requeen such package colonies, but when the purchased queen arrives I find that there is a wonderful queen in place already! Ted Fischer Dexter, Michigan, USA