Thoughts on two queens in a hive?

[Thom Mand]

Hi everyone,

This weekend I finally got into one of my stronger hives after a long while (due to travel, inclement weather, etc). I found a mated unmarked queen, a virgin queen, and 2-3 open queen cells on the periphery. Going into winter this hive had a "green" queen from 2024. I also found brood/larvae of all stages, including several full frames of capped brood and at least one large patch of freshly laid eggs. For what it's worth, I found both worker and drone capped brood.

I suspect this colony must have recently superseded, and the virgin was a backup to the mated queen I found, but I thought I would gather opinions. The course of action I took was to mark the mated queen and leave her in place. I also marked the virgin queen and moved her into a nuc with ~1.5 frames of brood, a frame of resources, and ~3 frames of shook nurse bees.

I would love to hear thoughts on my interpretation of the situation and the manipulations I made to resolve it.

Cheers!

Thom

[Jennifer Radtke]

Hi Thom,

I suspect that the mated queen mated earlier in the winter, but that she didn't mate very well (with very many drones).  The bees are trying to supersede her with the queen cells/virgin queen.  It may not be a problem if you removed the virgin or queen cells as they will likely build queen cells to try to supersede her again.  They're resilient and persistent.  If the virgin queen has already been on her orientation flights she will have oriented to the big hive and return back that after going on a mating flight.  Safer to move the queen cells, so she hatches out in the nuc in the new location and orients to that.  I have also heard to not mark virgin queens as it can affect their mating.  I don't mark my queens though, so can't speak from experience on that.   I recommend leaving the nuc alone for 2 weeks and then inspecting for mating (capped worker brood) and queen.  If no brood/queen, you can always combine the hive back up with the original hive.  It will be interesting to see what happens.   All the best,   Jennifer

Jennifer Radtke

learnfromthebees.com

[Mimi]

I learn the hard way - Virgin Queens are quick to fly and will fly away.  Whereas pregnant mated Queen usually stay put (they starve her/force her on a diet to lose weight before she is able to swarm; even then she can’t fly too far).   Since I’ve lost a Virgin Queen trying to mark her, I now wait until she is laying before attempting to mark her.   Mimi 

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 21, 2026, at 9:09 AM, 'Jennifer Radtke' via The Alameda County Beekeepers Association <the-alameda-county-b...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Hi Thom,

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[Thom Mand]

Thank you for the responses! 

Sung also reached out and had similar thoughts, including that it is probably not wise to mark virgin queens.

One of the things I've gathered is that it would have been better to either leave both queens as-is, or to move the mated queen to a nuc. My first instinct was to leave both queens in the hive, but then I realized I could potentially get a new hive started, which I was planning to do later in the season anyway. If I had instead moved the mated queen, I could always recombine with the original colony if the virgin didn't successfully mate.

When encountering new situations in the apiary it can be difficult to know the right direction to take, and decisions need to be made quickly. Having a good rule of thumb or standard process could help to make timely decisions in certain scenarios. Would this be a good one, and would there be scenarios in which it doesn't work? 

"When queen cells or virgin queens are found in a hive with a mated queen, move the mated queen to a new hive."

This covers both the situation described in this thread (a likely supersedure) and the preemptive swarm control process described by Wally Shaw.

Cheers!

Thom

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