Queen Piping and Flow Hive Install

[mrjenkins]

Almost a year to the day since I installed my first package of bees, I finally set up the Flow Hive box! Installation was very simple (I like the screw mount on the front of each frame that helps you get it snug in the box). Immediately after installation, I observed quite a few bees checking out the new space. Just prior to putting my bee suit on, I was listening to the the upper brood box and heard a significant amount of “piping/tooting.” I have read about this being a potential competing queen situation, so when I opened up the hive, I tried particularly hard to find my queen. BTW - I’m a terrible queen-spotter, and once again, I could not find her. Evidence of eggs, larvae and capped brood, so I’m assuming she is still laying.I am going to wait a couple weeks and go back in. I have been a pretty “hands-off” keeper so far, so I am hoping the colony will take care of itself with the potential double-queen. Do queens ever just pipe/toot when there is no issue in the hive?

[Dan2]

I’ve heard tooting/piping before swarming. A week or so before actually. They can communicate even whilst still in their cells apparently. I assume you didn’t find any queen cells. I wonder, did you get right down into the bottom box? I have seen a video of a tooting/piping queen where I think there was no other queen but can’t recall accurately. It shows all the worker bees stopping still whilst the queen toots.

[Semaphore]

We heard our queen toot the first time we robbed flow frames- and some honey dripped through the brood. There was no indication ever of swarming or queen cells

Your brood frames look good/ lots of bees, good brood pattern