Supersedure in bees: can two queens live together?

In this guide

• What supersedure means and what I found in this colony
• How two queens appeared together
• Why I judged the brood across the hive before deciding what to do
• How I checked the new queen after introducing her

What supersedure in bees means

Supersedure is when a colony begins replacing its queen. When I opened this hive in April, I found what looked like a late supersedure. The marked F0 queen was still there, and I found a second queen on the same frame. She looked well mated.

From the outside, the colony looked strong. Bees were flying, bringing in pollen, and the hive felt heavy. The frames told a different story. Much of the brood was scattered drone brood. One frame had a little worker brood, but several others had poor or very little brood.

Can two queens live together?

In this colony, I found two queens at the same time. That told me they were both present, but it didn’t tell me which queen the bees had accepted or whether either was doing well.

I couldn’t tell whether the bees were waiting to remove the original queen or had accepted her replacement. The brood pattern was poor, and the colony wasn’t thriving. Choosing one queen by appearance would have been a guess.

Read the brood across the whole hive

A small patch of worker brood can make a colony look better than it is. I checked every frame rather than stopping at the first one.

I found scattered drone brood across several frames, adult drones on some, and little brood elsewhere. The small amount of worker brood wasn’t enough to show that either queen was keeping the colony on track. I also couldn’t see viable eggs.

If every frame had looked like the one with a little worker brood, I might have given the queen more time. That wasn’t what I found here.

Why I removed both queens

I couldn’t identify a clear choice between the two queens. With the colony struggling and no clear sign that either queen was producing a good brood pattern, I removed both and introduced a newly mated F1 Buckfast queen.

I placed her between two brood frames in the centre of the hive. The bees showed interest straight away. You can read more about mated queens and how we breed for calmness.

Check the new queen’s progress

I left the colony for seven days, then checked for eggs. I found eggs and a good pattern. At fourteen days, I looked for worker brood. Seeing that brood showed the introduction had worked.

What to check when you find two queens

• Check the brood on every frame, not only the frame that looks best.
• Look at the overall pattern of worker and drone brood.
• If two queens are present, don’t choose between them by appearance alone.
• Decide from the condition of the colony and what the brood shows

Useful kit for checking a supersedure colony

When you find two queens, give yourself time to work through the frames and see what the brood is telling you. Have your inspection kit ready, then keep a record of what you find so you’ve got something to compare at the next check.

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Start with clean gloves, as I did for this inspection. These Gator Gripz nitrile gloves have a textured grip and thicker fingertips. This pack is size large, so check the sizing before ordering.

Have your smoker ready before you start looking through the brood frames. The Dadant stainless steel smoker has an 11 cm chamber, a heat guard and a hook for hanging it on the hive.

A Rite in the Rain pocket notebook gives you somewhere to record the queens you found and the brood across the hive. If you introduce a replacement, note the date too. In this colony, the seven-day egg check and fourteen-day worker-brood check showed me how she was getting on.

Where to go next

If your colony needs a new queen, read my guide to how to requeen a beehive.

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