Hi Bob & all

A mountain of points Bob... but I will try and deal with them without
slagging off your prized Italians.

> Most researchers say beekeepers simply open a hive and find two queens
> and assume many things about the situation.

Perhaps your American researchers have not put enough effort into their
analyses, However it is a trait that is strongly marked in AMM bees and
probably you do not see representatives of that race in USA?

> Researchers explained to us at these talks  that something is wrong with =
> the genetic makeup of bees which allow two queens OR there is a very =
> simple answer which the observing beekeeper is not seeing

The research carried out in UK, mainly by Beo Cooper and other BIBBA
members, has concluded that it is a strategy that helps colonies to survive
in seasons where bad weather rules out swarming.

> When I have found two queens in the same hive there have been an old =
> queen and a young queen. When I took the two and put together the battle =
> was on.

Difficult to draw a parallel here, about the ages, but one will always be
older than the other... usually by one year, but two or three year gap is
possible.

Cases of three or more queens are much rarer than two, but it would be
likely that each had been raised in successive years.
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/avm.html
Describes some of the mating habits of bees that exhibit supercedure.

> The bees have raised a new queen and the two have not met yet.

Hundreds of observations by dozens of beekeepers have been made of intimate
contact between the queens with no fighting. Many (most) of these queens
were numbered or marked.

> Maybe Dave has tried putting the two together and will comment.

No it has not been tried by myself, but I have seen them a couple of
millimetres apart without such intervention on a good many occasions. Where
two queens exist in this manner they are usually found close together and
almost always found on the same frame.

> I DO NOT leave two such queens in a hive because it serves no purpose =
> for me. I leave the younger of the two.

That is your method of dealing with what you percieve as a problem, but in
your case it would probably result in more brood than the colony required.
In my case even with two queens present the nest only expands to the extent
of 7 or 8 (maybe 9) B.S. sized frames.

> Researchers explained that beekeepers which keep bees in three or more =
> deep brood boxes frequently find two brood nests

Could it be that the bees are trying to tell you that three Langstroth deeps
is too much volume for one bee colony?

> A genetic pheromone problem. Both queens are giving out LOW levels of =
> pheromones

It may well be true that pheromone levels are lower in AMM queens than other
races, but this is not a defect, it is merely that AMM queens do not need to
subdue such large numbers of workers as may occur in more prolific strains.

> Dave wrote:
> Certainly among the colonies that I have kept during the
>  last 20 years it has occured in about 75% of them.
> This seems like a rather high figure and would lead me
> to suspect a genetic problem.

You may percieve it as a problem, but it is a feature that I positively
select for (I am not alone in this, there are hundreds of likeminded
beekeepers that make the same selection).

> Please do not get upset Dave as only my opinion

I am not upset, Bob. It is "horses for courses" your bees would not last
many seasons in the conditions that mine thrive in. I also doubt that my
bees could cope very well with your geographic and weather parameters.

> A curious situation which Dave talked about in great detail on the Irish =
> list was finding his numbered queens  from one nuc in another nuc and =
> the numbered queen from that nuc in the other nuc. I honestly have not =
> got an answer for that situation unless his bee buddies are playing =
> tricks on Dave. Comments/

Apart from a few others reporting unusual occurrances, there has been no
comment. I suspect that there are too few beekeepers that actually use
numbers and keep records, to show up such events. I do not suspect any
trickery (if you tried such a trick I bet it would fail in some way).

I have over the last three seasons used mating nucs on fence posts about
every 2.5 metres along the inside of the perimeter fence of my apiary. I
have seen marked and unmarked queens walking about on the horizontal rails
of the fence, but no swapping occurred that I noticed. Someone else
commented on seing this walking on woodwork as well.


Best Regards & 73s... Dave Cushman, G8MZY
Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website...
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman