![]() ![]() Check it over for the queen, then gently set it aside, leaning it against the hive box. To begin your search, remove an outer frame. It is unlikely to find the queen on a resource frame, although not impossible. The outer frames are primarily used for resources like pollen and honey. This is usually located in the center frames. The role of the queen bee is to lay eggs, so she will most likely be in the brood chamber. The queen bee prefers the dark and will shy away from the light! Keep this in mind as you look through the frames. You will learn how much is just right with experience. You can use a few puffs of smoke to help move the bees down when you open the cover. A puff of smoke at the hive entrance will mask this smell to keep the busy bees calm. The guard bees release a pheromone that smells like banana oil to alert the hive to intruders. You want her to continue on her quest to lay her eggs.īeekeepers use smoke to keep bees from stinging. Too much smoke will send her into a frenzy, which will only make it more difficult to find her. Use as little smoke as possible when searching for the queen. When she is on the move, I stay laser-focused on spotting her long, narrow abdomen. Honestly, I never notice the queen’s legs or wings unless I’m looking at a photo. This is the most noticeable feature that helps her stand out. So when you think you’ve found the queen, make sure she has a pointy butt, not a round butt! Queen Honey Bee Drone Bee How to Identify Your Queen Beeįocus on searching for the queen bee’s long abdomen! In a hive with a large number of bees constantly on the move, the best way to look for her is to search for her long body. Drones are larger, but the end of their abdomens are rounded. ![]() All other bees have black legs.ĭrone bees (male bees) are often mistaken for the queen. The queen’s legs are usually orange or yellow in color. You will hardly see the other honey bees’ legs while they are on the comb. You can see the queen’s legs when she is walking. The queen is the only bee with legs that are prominently splayed outward like a grasshopper. The rest of the bees have wings as long as their bodies. Her long abdomen gives the illusion that she has smaller wings. She usually doesn’t have different stripes of color on her abdomen, so she could be a different color than the surrounding bees. She has a long abdomen that comes to a point. The queen is the largest bee in the hive. The queen is constantly moving, laying up to 2000 eggs every day! With several frames and tens of thousands of bees, finding the queen can be like trying to play the game of Where’s Waldo. But it does feel like a game of “Find the Queen” after several frames with no luck. My secret weapon when finding the queen is my young, eagle-eyed children! They usually manage to spot the queen before me. You could use a magnifying glass to help your search. When you can find and cage the queen, you can safely inspect the rest of the hive without the worry of accidentally injuring her. You might need to replace an old queen, to pinch her before combining colonies, or to mark her. It isn’t necessary to find the queen every time you inspect your bee hive, but there are circumstances when a beekeeper must locate her. But there is a thrill to finding your own queen!Įven an experienced beekeeper may have trouble finding the queen. ![]() It does require some knowledge and practice. New beekeepers worry about being able to spot the queen. Trying to find the queen bee in a honey bee colony can be challenging. ![]()
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