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Last weekend, Marc and I went with David (recovering from shoulder surgery) to inspect his hives. This one did not look particularly strong and when I pulled a medium super, the queen dropped off it onto the super below. She had a large abdomen, but was not moving well and did not appear to be strong. There was some brood in the hive, but not a lot. David and I went back this morning with the idea that we would yank this queen out and combine the hive with another of his hives. When I lifted the outer cover, the queen we had seen was limping around on the top of the inner cover with about 5-6 bees attending her. We did a quick examination of the top medium and found nothing unusual and no brood. The bees were largely in the next medium and were gathered in a way that looked like they were tending to brood. We examined those frames and I saw eggs and young larvae. Then I saw ANOTHER queen, on this frame and apparently mated and calm. My best guess is that the two queens overwintered together, but something happened to limping and injured one.

We will want to check the brood cappings in a week or 10 days to make sure this is worker brood being produced and not a drone layer. Just when you think you are figuring them out, they pull a stunt like this.

There are many more 2 queen hives than most people think. The biggest reason why they are never seen is people quit looking when they find the first one. Many supercedure queens will let mom stay and die of natural causes.

I have a hive now with two resident queens since last October. I usually fine them working the same frame. Two years ago I had one that had 3 queens at the same time in the fall and at least 2 overwintered together.