With thousands of bees in a hive, how does one fine THE queen in all that activity?
In: Biology
The hive will ~~ball~~ **cluster** around the queen to protect her, so you follow the bees that seem to be following other bees. In the middle will be a completely different bee, that’s the queen
EDIT: “Balling” and “clustering” are different behaviours with specific meanings and I’m too sleepy to remember the one I wanted
They look for an outlier. The queen is usually a different size, color, or has different markings.
The Queen is bigger than a worker, usually has a lot of workers and drones around her, and has a turquoise dot on her back
Beekeeper here (with my whole 1 summer of experience). Some people mark queens, basically there is a little marker type of tool that will put a small colored dot on their back. The color corresponds to the year the queen was born to know her age. That’s the easy way.
Unmarked queens are definitely harder to find but not super hard. Queens are longer, and their wings don’t reach their butt like worker bees. I find that they are usually more of an orange color. And if you pull a frame out of a hive and see eggs in cells, that means the queen was there within the past day or so and it’s likely that the queen is on that frame or the next frame over.
Another thing that can help you find a queen is if you hear her making a piping noise. I believe there is some debate on why they do it but one theory is to call out to other recently hatched queens to find each other and fight. Regardless of the reason for the sound that is another thing that can help you locate them. I’ve read it’s fairly rare to hear. I was lucky to hear it last summer and record it with my phone.
If the Tiktoks I’ve seen are any indicator, they usually have a bright red circle around them.
My father was a bee keeper. The queen is a bit larger, so you look for that. With time it gets easier. And sometimes you just put a tiny drop of paint on her. It isn’t really that hard to find her.
Sometimes, if you have a big hive, as in many floors, you can put a queen excluder which is like a mesh where the queen can’t pass through (she’s wider and longer than a worker bee. Also the drones can’t pass as they are a lot bigger than workers). This excluder exists so that your top floors only contain honey/pollen and the lower ones may contain honey and eggs/larvae… And you only look for the queen on the lower floor. Also, they are usually around where the new eggs are. These eggs are freaking small, like a white dot at the bottom of the cells. After a day they are a tad bigger, the queen stays near the newest ones.
The comment where they say the bees ball up on the queen is wrong, that only happens when they want to kill her (for being a second one or from another hive) and there are tricks to make them “adopt” a new foreign queen. Ask if you wanna know more.
**Cross your eyes**
No joke. This is a tip an old-timer once taught me and I surprised not to see it here in the comments.
Most of the bees on a frame move randomly. The queen is the only that moves differently. Worker bees will move out of her way and sometimes there are attendants following her. It can be hard to see at first. Blurring your vision with crossed eyes can help you see the difference in the pattern. Think of it as a “forrest through the trees” kind of thing.
Notes:
* I tend to collect wild swarms, so the queens are not painted.
* Holding each frame up to the sun can help. The queen will instinctively move out of the light.
follow up question.
how mobile is the queen bee? Does she leave the hive often?
How does a queen become a queen with millions of other bees out there? Is she born with it?
Latest Answers