With thousands of bees in a hive, how does one fine THE queen in all that activity?
In: Biology
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.
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