Releasing a Queen (by mistake)

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Joined
May 26, 2021
Messages
222
Reaction score
61
Location
Salisbury
Hive Type
WBC
Number of Hives
5
Today I was going through the bottom and top BBs on a demaree'd colony which I believe swarmed a few days ago. I was double-checking that I had only one sealed QC in the bottom BB.
In the top BB there were a few QCs (supercedure cells?) and I began to take them out. As I levered one of them off with my hive tool the queen inside emerged. She was quite definitely a queen; small and pointy. She seemed fully-developed and scuttled off happily. Clearly I must have missed that QC on previous inspections.

I was a bit taken aback and unprepared to catch her. So I decided that the most sensible course of action would be to let her run free and close up again. So now I appear to have a top box that is Q+ (unmated) and a bottom box that has a single QC. So my question really is: can I/should I just leave them to it and add a couple of QEs above and below the top BB. I'd then have, in effect, two Q+ colonies in one hive separated by a demaree board and QEs. Or should I find a way to get the queen into the bottom BB where she belongs, perhaps by simply swapping the BBs over and then taking out the remaining QC?
 
Today I was going through the bottom and top BBs on a demaree'd colony which I believe swarmed a few days ago. I was double-checking that I had only one sealed QC in the bottom BB.
In the top BB there were a few QCs (supercedure cells?) and I began to take them out. As I levered one of them off with my hive tool the queen inside emerged. She was quite definitely a queen; small and pointy. She seemed fully-developed and scuttled off happily. Clearly I must have missed that QC on previous inspections.

I was a bit taken aback and unprepared to catch her. So I decided that the most sensible course of action would be to let her run free and close up again. So now I appear to have a top box that is Q+ (unmated) and a bottom box that has a single QC. So my question really is: can I/should I just leave them to it and add a couple of QEs above and below the top BB. I'd then have, in effect, two Q+ colonies in one hive separated by a demaree board and QEs. Or should I find a way to get the queen into the bottom BB where she belongs, perhaps by simply swapping the BBs over and then taking out the remaining QC?
Leave them to it - I often end up running a few double queen colonies after missing a QC in the top box. They beauty is they are all supersedure cells so made from the youngest, choice larvae.
 

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