Queen Behavior

[divebee]

I have a hive that was weak, but now has a superceeded queen in place, and it is turning around and improving. I thought today, I would find the queen and mark and clip her. I looked and found her, caught her in one of the queen marking tubes with the sponge material on a sliding piston inside the tube. I marked and clipped her, but when trying to release her, her foot was stuck in the sponge and she had a tough time with it, until I pulled her foot out of the sponge. She was not getting around all that well, and I thought I had hurt her. I released her back in the hive. A couple hours passed, and I thought I would have another look and see if she was getting around ok. Looked through the single deep frames 4 times and did not see her. The bees had moved away from the broodnest and were in an empty division board feeder, most of them. They were fanning like they had no queen. I just happened to look just in front of the hive and on the pallet board I seen a green dot and some bees. There she is! She is in front of the hive. Not moving around much and a few bees tending her. I picked her up and placed her on the top of the frames (Cover removed), and she took off running, so I was relieved she did not seem injured, but she didnt get in any hurry to get back down between the frames and into the brood nest. After a bit, she did go between the frames, and I placed the cover on. I sat watching the front of the hive for several minutes, If she even came out the front of the hive I was going to swat her. I think she may have been in the mood to abscond. Has anybody else ever seen such from a Queen? :(

[Michael Bush]

I've had a queen run out on the landing board while I was searching the hive for her. Thank goodness I finally noticed her.

[tecumseh]

a queen will typically run from the smoke. smoke the entrance heavily and she is likely to be found near the top of the hive, smoke the top heavily and she is quite likely to be found in the bottom corners of the hive or out the front door.

[Jim Fischer]

The trick to finding a queen quickly and without
fuss is simply to ask yourself "Where is the LAST
place I would suspect the queen to be in this
hive?"

Look there, and there she'll be.

Of course, you can't use this Jedi Master Beekeeper
trick too often, or your answer will change to
an incorrect one due to double-thinking yourself
into a new view of "the last place I'd look".

Beekeeping can be very Zen.

[tecumseh]

O-mmmmmm......

[Big Stinger]

What he said.