# Does this queen seem small?



## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

I've seen smaller. How does she perform?


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## SRatcliff (Mar 19, 2011)

She's from my best hive, large population and made lots of honey for this winter. This is my first time finding one of my queens( first time trying really). I thought she would be bigger thats why I was asking.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

It's possible you have two, but size is not necessarily correlated to productivity.


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## throrope (Dec 18, 2008)

Looks good to me.


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## Buzzy Bee (Apr 18, 2011)

> It's possible you have two


How is that possible i always thought they would fight or swarm.

If there is a way to have two then please tell me all about it 

I find this interesting


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## robherc (Mar 17, 2012)

I've heard that up to 10% of hives may have 2 queens, just that the beek usually doesn't notice (especially since we almost ALL "stop looking" after we've found "the queen" in our hives). As far as having 2 queens successfully co-operating in the same hive INTENTIONALLY, I've heard of it being done with Q excluders, but not any other way.

I know it's not much info, but I hope it helps, FWIW


P.S. I read quite a bit about some experiments that were done in this direction in one of the books on queen raising that you can read for free on Michael Bush's website.


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## Keefis (May 4, 2012)

I have a TBH...
would a 2 queen hive need 2 separate entrances for the different queens?
and I assume an excluder in the middle somewhere?


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## robherc (Mar 17, 2012)

Keefis: This may be a conversation for a different thread, but I'll take one swing at it for you...

For an intentional, _human instigated_ two-queen hives in a TBH (similar to the double-queen towers experimented with by many Lang. beeks) you would need:
#1 an extremely long hive; at least 1.5x the length of a large, 1-colony TBH, but preferably at least 2x as long
#2 TWO queen excluders, and two entrances...use a queen excluder "behind" each broodnest area, so only workers have access to any of the honey storage area
#3 Two colonies of bees to "start it off" with
#4 I'm guessing you'll need some form of newspaper/cloak board to separate the two colonies for a while, until the workers from each colony "get to know" each other, so there aren't constant fights "to the death" in the honey storage area.
#5 More patience than I have 
#6 A bullet-proof bee suit, as I've heard that these types of hives tend to be quite a bit hotter than normal, due to the stress of constantly being exposed to bees from another colony, in _their_ hive.

Obviously, I've never attempted this (and don't ever really intend to, as I don't personally see any real advantage to it) setup myself, so all of the above is simply conjecture based on having read works written by others who have tried similar "experiments" in different equipment. If you want to play with it, good luck, but I wouldn't invest too much hope in it being a miraculous way to get more honey production from your bees, or even successful, at least not until you've done a LOT more experimentation with it.


Hope that helps,
Rob


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## Keefis (May 4, 2012)

Rob,
thanks for the detailed info which leads to the mutual no thanks for the two queener!! How can anyone keep two queens in one house? Sounds like reality TV


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

She looks like a very nice sized queen, to me.


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