Ted Fischer wrote:

> When looking at my colonies this weekend I saw something new, after 25
> years among bees.  In a rather small but flourishing colony I saw two
> perfectly good large queens on the same side of a comb, only about three
> inches apart from each other.

I believe this is more common than we think. What you saw is mother
and daughter, often going side by side until the bees finally decide the
new queen is good enough and dispose of the old. I have also found
two queens that had wintered together early one spring.

The reason for not seeing it is probably that we stop looking when we
found one queen.... Of course we now and then run into trouble when
requeening a hive that's in the process of superseeding and got a virgin
running around on the bottom board. But after a number of lost new
queens we realize what's going on.....

But I have another one that I will be thinking on for a long time;
It happened three years ago in the beginning of summer. I was out
checking hives, adding supers when needed, and keeping an eye
on swarm instinct. That year I had some Carnica queens for testing.
Those of you that have seen them know they are dark like the
workers and a bit more difficult to spot in the hive when you are used
to look for a yellow lady.

When checking through the hives I noticed one that was showing
signs of being queenless. And when looking in the brood area
I found only nervously buzzing workers. No sign of queen, and
what was strange, no try to produce a new queen by emergency
cells.

A few hives away, about 4 meters, I found another hive so full of
bees that they already had started making swarm cells. When they
were Carnica bees, there was no other way to talk them out of
it than making a split with half of the population to reduce the
number of bees in the hive. So I wanted to find the queen, to
know which part I should give the new cell or queen. Looking
through a brood nest full of brood, I found the lady. Clipped and
marked as she was It was easy to spot her. I put her in the new
hive I was making, and continued going through the old hive to
divide up the brood frames equally between them.

But what did I see, if not another big nice queen walking around
in the same hive! And what's more, she was also marked and
clipped! That was the missing queen from the first hive. But how
had she got there? Hardly by flying with only one wing....
By walking 4 meters in the grass? And why did she leave her
hive? How come she was welcome in the other hive that
already got a good laying queen?

I'll bee thinking about this one a long time.......

--
Regards

P-O Gustafsson, Sweden
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