kevrhcfag,
Your Hive one. You are lucky they did not swarm, if these were swarm cells, as you did not A/S the hive - you simply split off a portion with the two queen cells and so simply weakened the original colony. They will likely go into swarm mode again, if that is what it was, if they again get crowded, or back up to full strength.
You did not emulate the swarming process for the colony ie queen to new home, little brood (would 'naturally' be none, of course), lots of comb building to do - you just removed five frames, some of the bees and a little brood, I am guessing.
Seems to me as though it should have been supered and some stores, or stores frames, in the brood box 'bruised', leading to them moving those stores into the super in a fairly short short time scale (more room then, for brooding in the brood box as opposed to 'storing' in there).
The split. It is less usual to leave a split with more than one queen cell (but that would usually lead to a cast, if anything, should the split be crowded at emergence).
Were there only four queen cells in the whole affair? If so which box? If so they may still have been in superceding mode in hive one, getting ready to swarm later with a young queen.
It is far better, I will add, to discuss just the one item in a thread. Describing hives 2and 4 simply make for further unanswered questions - like why was one colony with single brood and 3 supers and this one apparently (by omission of information) on a double brood and no(?) super.
An outsider option - they were still in superceding mode in hive 5 and the bees tolerated two queens on emergence - just guessing here as this situation would be very uncommon - instead of one killing the other.
Another more likely scenario may be that you actually opened them right at emergence time and caused the second queen to be allowed to emerge - it doesn't take long if she has been held in the cell, and smoking or roughly removing the roof/crownboard may have diverted the bees' attention and freed her.
So a question as to their motives. I reckon they were about to throw a small cast from the nuc, as soon as the first emerged queen was developed adequately to fly or the weather was suitable, but you went in just before it occurred?
The other alternative would be rare, but one can never tell, where bees are concerned. I'm only guessing here, as the dates and information supplied could indicate either of those scenarios, the cast being my favoured choice.
I'm certainly not 'gruff', btw. Just honest and to the point at times, but usually with a well reasoned argument to explain clearly to you newbies. Some might see it as sharp, condescending, impolite, rude etc, but they are likely the 'non-thinkers' with thin skins and easily upset egos. Phew, glad we have some on the forum who are not like them!
I will only set out to be sharp when replying to an id--t who is not prepared to listen, or in response to someone having a go at me, first. I seem to be fair game for quite a few of those, but mostly they show themselves in 'true colours' elsewhere.
They are often the ones who tend to snipe and run around in packs (or flocks?), hoping to get credence by force of numbers (yes, they know who they are) and if you are around long enough, and follow enough threads, the trends will become clear.
In this case, you have made an unusual observation and I have attempted to explain the only two alternatives I can think of. There may be others out there with experience of this, but I've never had it just like this. I would not, of course, normally leave two cells in a split, nor open around emergence time, nor hunt through the box if I did!
But there, you would not have even expected a response from the non-thinkers, would you?
(and I am not thinking, here, of the less experienced beeks out there that actually want to learn)
Regards, RAB (my initials - the oliver90 part is a 60+ year old tractor)
