Finding a Queen

[roger lee]

I will be requeening a few hives in the next couple weeks. Does anyone have tips for locating the old queen? I have a hard time finding queens.

[Ravenseye]

I either find her right away or it takes forever. Here's what I do:

- Pull a frame and just look at it without trying to focus on specific bees. Sometimes I can spot the queen right away if I'm looking at the frame as a whole.

- If I don't see her like that, I look for a cluster of bees that aren't scurrying around quite as fast as the others....especially if that cluster is nearer the middle of the frame.

- When I turn a frame, I watch the corners and edges. I've had queens run to the side I just got done examining while I was rotating the frame.

- I try not to use very much smoke since it sends the bees in all sorts of directions and makes it harder to spot the queen.

- Even if I know that I had a marked queen, I look for un-marked queens as well since there's no guarantee that my original, store bought queen hasn't been replaced.

- Sometimes, I place the examined frames in a different box very near the one I have open. That helps with the process.

Sometimes I never find her. Most of the time, I see her when I'm looking for something else like condition of brood, etc.

Hope this helps.

[sc-bee]

Courtesy of MB!

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenspotting.htm

[bluegrass]

I start with the frames that have fresh eggs and work out from there. Most of the time she is near the eggs that she has just laid.

[Putz]

To find a queen, I look for the eggs and examine the open brood. All of a sudden, there she is and I wasn't even looking for her.