2 Laying Queens in one box
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Mimi
Mar 11, 2026, 3:02:46 PM (7 days ago) Mar 11
to Beetalk ACBC
On 2/17 I made Demaree split placing 4 brood frames on top divided by honey medium and Queen at the bottom box. Throughout the following week I took out 3 of the 4 brood for various reasons (giving them to other hives). The 4th frame barely had any bees or brood so I thought I didn’t need to worry about them reQueening on top. I was wrong!
Checked the hive yesterday and I have 2 laying Queens! One in bottom box laying brood to the left and using back of hive as it’s entrance and another to the right using front entrance. I had to give away 4 frames of brood, 2 from each Queen to slow them down as they were getting crowded and I was concerned about swarming.
Should I split the hive? Should I let them continue and add honey mediums to the middle? Thoughts?
Checked the hive yesterday and I have 2 laying Queens! One in bottom box laying brood to the left and using back of hive as it’s entrance and another to the right using front entrance. I had to give away 4 frames of brood, 2 from each Queen to slow them down as they were getting crowded and I was concerned about swarming.
Should I split the hive? Should I let them continue and add honey mediums to the middle? Thoughts?
Paula Breen
Mar 11, 2026, 3:09:46 PM (7 days ago) Mar 11
to Alameda County Beekeepers Assn.
Hi Mimi,
Are you looking to increase? If yes, then WIN! Split the hive. Or you could take off a queenright nuc from the top and sell it, or just sell the queen and reunite the bees with the brood frames together. I do this all the time with my snellgrove boards. They are so handy for vertical splits (less equipment needed, easy to reunite if queen mating fails) and for swarm control. Or if you want big production of honey perhaps leaving it as a 2 queen hive with more boxes would be good, but personally I dont like to deal with too tall hives.
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Mimi
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Gerald Przybylski
Mar 11, 2026, 4:23:52 PM (7 days ago) Mar 11
to the-alameda-county-b...@googlegroups.com
Aha!! A (natural) two-queen hive!
two-queen hives are commonly used to enhance honey production per given hive footprint.
It's thermodynamically more efficient for ripening honey and keeping the brood warm.
If you keep a couple of boxes of honey between the brood balls, they will coexist.
When done commercially, usually two queen excluders are used. One above the lower colony, and one below the upper colony.
Entrances can't block drones from leaving; otherwise the wrongly configured one will accumulate dead drones that can't be disposed of.
With the high population of house bees and foragers, you may have to check more often for hints they will swarm.
Packed hives are great for comb-honey production, and this is a good part of the year to be producing comb honey.
They're notorious for wanting to swarm.
That's my 2¢
In Wally's book, one of his splitting scenarios results in a two-queen colony like that.
At the end of the honey production season he just recombines them. I forgot whether he lets the queens fight it out when merging them, or whether the beekeeper kills off the older one.
ps.
I once split a colony. A few weeks later I wondered why one didn't produce an emergency queen. Both were raising brood.
When I inspected each of them, I found a queen in each, each marked with a different color!
How did I miss that before I did the split?
two-queen hives are commonly used to enhance honey production per given hive footprint.
It's thermodynamically more efficient for ripening honey and keeping the brood warm.
If you keep a couple of boxes of honey between the brood balls, they will coexist.
When done commercially, usually two queen excluders are used. One above the lower colony, and one below the upper colony.
Entrances can't block drones from leaving; otherwise the wrongly configured one will accumulate dead drones that can't be disposed of.
With the high population of house bees and foragers, you may have to check more often for hints they will swarm.
Packed hives are great for comb-honey production, and this is a good part of the year to be producing comb honey.
They're notorious for wanting to swarm.
That's my 2¢
In Wally's book, one of his splitting scenarios results in a two-queen colony like that.
At the end of the honey production season he just recombines them. I forgot whether he lets the queens fight it out when merging them, or whether the beekeeper kills off the older one.
ps.
I once split a colony. A few weeks later I wondered why one didn't produce an emergency queen. Both were raising brood.
When I inspected each of them, I found a queen in each, each marked with a different color!
How did I miss that before I did the split?
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