Piping ??????????????

[djgriggs]

Hello everyone . First off I hope everyone is having a good start this year . I myself are a little behind due to the weather this year. Good news is that all of my hives mad it out of the winter and have made two splits off of them so far.

I do have the following question....

I was doing an inspection on one of my double brood box hives and I was able to spot the Queen without issue. I did however notice a lot of drones. However when I was holding the frame with the Queen (by the way this is last years queen) out of the box I thought I hear piping come from what sounded like the bottom box. I was not able to look into this further as weather was coming in and I had to go out. Is this possible I thought that new queens would only pipe for other new queens in search for one another. Could there be a new queen that I did not see and she is searching out the current queen for a battle to the death as we all know "There can be only One"  I am really curious about going back into this box to find out as soon as weather permits.

Any and All Thoughts are welcome

Thank you

[Michael Bush]

Usually they are piping because they are swarming, though it could be a supersedure...

[BeeMaster2]

It might bee that your hive has not swarmed due the weather. I would go through that hive and harvest the queens and do some splitting. I would move the old queen to a new location with lots of room to lay in.
Jim Altmiller

[djgriggs]

Today was the first time that I have been able to get back to the hive where I heard the pipping. I went through the top box found the current marked queen. I proceeded to move to the bottom box where I heard the pipping the other day. I found a lot of nectar along with Tons of Drones and a small patch of capped brood. I however did not see a young queen. Could I have missed her, well it was not as bright outside but I do not think i missed her. I know that i was not hearing things the other day. I however can only think that maybe I was a day late when it come time to pluck her up before her death ? Could this be true that I could not find her because the current raining Queen killed her ?


Thank you
DJ

[van from Arkansas]

Don , I have seen two queens in a single hive several times in Spring,  mother and daughter most likely.  They get along, don?t fight and one usually takes off with or without bees.  I usually find at least one rogue queen every spring.  Not sure of the source of these rouge queens.  Easy to tell the rouge queens from my Cordovan queens.