First, welcome to beekeeping (...and to swarming!).
At this point, there's probably not a good answer to your question (kind of a "dealer's choice"). If you're pretty sure you've killed all the swarm cells, I'd be inclined to leave them alone at this point and let the bees decide which one will be their permanent queen (in other words, let them fight it out). If you've killed all the swarm cells, they're not so likely to swarm again. And worse case would be one last (and much smaller) swarm which at this point won't significantly impact your honey crop since they've already thrown off multiple swarms and the overall colony population is way down now. As far as maximizing your honey crop, things can't get much worse now anyway (assuming the health of the colony is not in question).
Brood nest crowding is thought to be the main reason for the bees developing the swarming impulse (but by no means the only causative factor). Your other (original) hive (the one with all the foundation to be drawn out) should not have any further swarming impulse developed this year - IF it does, then this queen just has really bad genetics/undesirable traits and should be replaced.

txbeeguy,

I'm tempted to open up the original hive this weekend, find both queens, and eradicate the smaller one. I might do that because who knows if both bees will be permanently injured in a battle to see who is top queen? That must happen occasionally, and if it does, the worker bees would have to start the queening process all over again, and valuable time will be lost getting the hive back in full production. Of course, all of this will be moot if one of them hasn't swarmed by then. Luckily we have mild winters here, so even if the hive experiences a third swarm this spring or early summmer, the remaining bees should make it through the winter.

Thanks,
Ersten

I wouldn't be indiscriminately killing queens at this stage. If you find both queens then split the hive with a queen in each half. If you only find one split it anyway and look for eggs in a couple of days. (young eggs are standing on their ends) After you determine who has the better brood pattern you can lose the weaker queen and combine using the newspaper method. Or you can requeen the weaker and have 2 colonies.

bamboo,

I am already max'd out at three hives. Instead of killing one, what if I just add a queen excluder between the two brood boxes to keep them apart until I can determine which one has a better brood pattern?

Ersten

Sure Ersten you can manage them as a 2 queen colony.
If it's very strong it would be good for comb production.

bambooo,

Thanks for the advice. I'll try that this weekend.

Ersten

bambooo,

An additional thought: Since each queen releases its own unique pheromone which it uses for communication and bonding, how does the presence of two different pheromones affect the hive's operation? When the bees from the upper colony pass through the lower colony to exit the hive, are they not viewed as "foreigners" and open to attack, or do the two different pheromones just blend together througout the hive, and everything is just hunky dory?

Thanks,
Ersten

Everybody ends up smelling about the same, they share the same food. The pheremone is the same chemical in either queen but it does vary depending upon her state of lay.

bambooo,

Thanks for the insight.

Ersten

Checked out this hive on Saturday, and could not find A SINGLE QUEEN! I didn't look as carefully as the previous week, thinking that any queen would surely have grown big enough to easily spot. I also did not see any queen cells, larvae (I still have not been able to detect eggs with my presbyopic eyes), or capped brood cells. I was concerned that either both queens swarmed, or they killed each other, so I stole a frame from another hive that had various larvae sizes and put into this hive, hoping that a new queen will be developed.

Do you think that there still is a queen in the hive, but that it still has not mated or not at the egg laying stage, so I might have missed seeing it?

BTW, the queen that I took out from this hive on the day that I spotted three queens, died in the jar I placed her and attendants in because I simply forgot about it until three days later. Only one worker bee was alive by then. What a pity.

Checked out this hive on Saturday. The frame with larvae and capped brood that I inserted the week before was all capped, and I could not locate any eggs or larvae on this frame or any other frame. I also could not find any queen cells, so I surmised that there MUST be a queen somewhere. I eventually found her on another frame in the other brood box, so all is well, and either this queen survived a fight with the other queen, or there was a smaller swarm that took that queen with her. She looked much fatter than two weeks ago, so she should be laying eggs soon.

killing queen cells often results in a queenless hive eventually.

So Ersten, what happened?

Since your situation has been going on most of the month of May, it doesn't make sense for me to try and recommend something. I hope you didn't get one of my least favorite problems, the ersatz queen. When the hive has been without a queen bee and a worker bee, nonfertilized of course, starts laying drone eggs.

The queenless hive is a fairly common problem. First thing I do is give the bees some brood from another hive, and though they could raise a queen from fresh brood, I also call my local queen supplier the same day.

SteveInTN,

After I found the queen two Saturdays ago (see my previous post), I was satisfied that everything was okay. Of course, I may have the rare problem of a non-egg laying queen, so I should check the hive this weekend to see if there are any eggs (one on the bottom of each cell, of course).

We had our first truly warm weekend of the year, and my three hives were buzzing with activity. Can't wait to taste the first extraction of this year's honey!

i woke up this am to find 2 swarms in the pine tree behind my house this am..my garden bees in my nuk that i got last year had been extra busy lately...today was the first nice warm day in 2-3 weeks.my nuk was made up from a split from my cousins hive.i called a beekeeper close by for help because i had no hive to put them in yet..was going to try a warre hive.should have been shipped sat but there was a delay and they swarmed sunday.....he brought an old box to put one swarm in for me and i told him to take the other home with him....how soon could i transfer the new swarmed ones to the warre hive..? this hive that they are in is just a temp. beat up one...my girls sure have been busy!