[BeeMoose]

Yesterday, by chance, I checked on my new hives and observed my marked queen outside on the landing board with a lot of bees around her. Within a minute it appeared they had ushered her
back inside. The only other thing out of the ordinary I observed was that there was about 4 times more bees flying around then my other hive.

Background: I installed two three pound hives this past Wednesday. The queens were supposedly breed queens. They are installed on new 10 wax frame hives with IPM bottom board. I have a hive top feeder with sugar water and pollen patty substitute.

A friend that is a bee keeper suggested that the queen was not actually breed and went out on her mating flight and I just happened to see her return.

My question is, Is this normal and should I be concerned or just roll with it.

My second concern is that my queen has a white mark on her and I know that 2014 color is green. Any know why this might be?

Thanks in advance for your time and knowledge.

 

[biggraham610]

Im new at this but I will say that I know alot of queen suppliers say up front they dont use the international color system for marking thier queens, why I dont have a clue, but I have read that when looking for queens many times.

 

[drlonzo]

Some of the queen suppliers don't use the international color system mostly for one reason. The colors can actually be difficult to see while trying to find the queens. One of the easiest colors to see is white. The queen likes to blend in with the dark combs and other bees. With the white it tends to show up pretty good when light shines on her.

 

[Tenbears]

Package growers do tons of packages a year. In addition to selling queens. They buy in bulk and they buy one color that may span a few years. if you only have a few hives it is pretty easy to keep up with your queens age until they swarm off or get superseded. if you have dozens you really do not worry about her age as long as hive checks are satisfactory.

 

[BeeMoose]

Thanks for your replies. That answers one of my newbee questions.

Does anyone know why the queen may have ventured outside the hive?

 

[Michael Bush]

>Does anyone know why the queen may have ventured outside the hive?

I found a two year old queen (she was marked and I recognized her) on the lid of a hive one day. I put her back in her hive and she continued laying in that hive for at least another year that I know of. I have never figured out what she was doing there. I had bottom entrances at the time, so she was a ways from the door...