2 queens in a hive

[Rosie]

2 weeks ago I was looking through my double queen system and spotted 2 queens in one half about 3 frames apart. Normally I manage to keep queens in different towers adjacent to each other with the workers mixing the in the supers above. This arrangement was based on the Van der Kirkhoff hive which was designed for 2 queens.

Last year neither half swarmed and I was able to use the system for rearing queens. This year, however, both halves swarmed together and caught me out - I lost both queens as a result. Then 2 weeks ago I found 2 new queens in one half and no queen or brood in the other. I just closed it up and left them to sort themselves out.

Today I went through them again and found both queens still in 1 half and a single, unmarked queen laying in the other. The odd thing is that the two queens working together in the same half are both new and unmarked so they can't be mother and daughter. Furthermore one is black, just like the old original queen and all the workers, and the other is light as if she flew in by accident after a mating flight. The workers must have accepted them both and they both seem to be tolerating each other. I had expected them to fight it out after seeing them both last time but I was wrong.

I duly marked them both - the yellow now has a yellow spot and the black one has a green spot. The black one next door has also been given a yellow spot. None of them has been clipped so I will be able to monitor progress.

I have never knowingly had 2 queens in one hive before and I had always believed that it only worked for mother and daughter pairings. I wonder if the original double queen hive arrangement has resulted in the inhabitants developing a tolerance of foreign queens.

Can anyone add any insights?

Steve