SPOT THE QUEEN BEE EVERY TIME: Secret to Finding the Queen EVERY Time

as i mentioned in the last section the queen is shaped differently than the other bees and it's important to get to know how to spot your queen because there are going to be times when you're going to need to find her now every week and every inspection it's not necessary to find your queen what you want is to look for signs of a healthy queen because you might have a queen in your hive but if she's not healthy and she's not doing her job doesn't matter if you have a queen or not an unhealthy queen is just as bad as no queen but that being said it's important to get to know how to find a queen and here are some tricks for one when you pull out a frame especially within the brood boxes where the queen's going to be you want to spend just five seconds looking at the frame real fast and then you want to flip it over and look at the other side of the frame and that's because coins vary and how skittish they are when they're being pulled out of the hive the queen leaves the hive once she goes on her mating flight and she does not leave the hive ever again unless at some point they swarm over the course of that season but every day all day long she's in the hive just laying egg after egg after egg and it's dark in the hive so you can imagine that if you live in darkness all day long and then suddenly without any warning you're pulled out into the bright sunlight you might hide undercover too and so that's what many queens do many queens will try to run under a group of bees they will find a little hole within the beeswax and go over to the other side they'll run over from the side of the frame over to the other side they might jump off the frame onto a frame that's still within the beehive so you want to walk real fast on your frame you spend a minute or two looking on either side the queen's hidden and it's going to be hard to find her after you spent five seconds on each side then you can do another look on the other side of the frame if you would and what you're looking for is a bee that looks different than the rest you're not looking at each individual b you're going to look at a frame in thirds and you're just letting your eye look for something out of place it's common for new beekeepers to think the drone is a queen so it's important to remember what the drone looks like and then he has those really big eyes and a round butt so that you don't think that every drone you see is a queen bee some other tricks to help you spot the queen is for one to not use too much smoke with when opening the beehive because smoke can often cause the queen to run and hide for cover before you even pull her out you also want to do uh just a glance at the frames uh to either side of the frame you're pulling out just to see if the queen jumped off of the frame onto another frame i've seen a queen multiple times when checking a beehive and that's because she just kept on bouncing around as i was opening it up other queens they won't stop they'll just keep on laying eggs and doing their thing as if nothing is going on so it really depends on the personality of your queen another thing you can do which is a makes it really easy to spot her is you can put a mark on her there are different colored markings depending on what year it is and usually when you buy your bees they will ask you if you want a marked queen or not so the first couple years it's a good idea to have a dot on her it'll also let you know if um your base swarmed and made a new queen your bee doesn't have a dot your queen doesn't dot on her anymore but it makes it really easy to spot her after a few years though i recommend not getting your queen marked and that's because i just think it's good practice to get to know spotting your queen without the tricks of putting paint on her so let's give it a try look the frame in thirds spend just five seconds and just see if anything looks different from the rest let's turn it over to the other side here are some extra tips if you see a frame with eggs on it especially eggs that are standing up take a little bit of extra time looking at the frame now first you spend five seconds flip it around you spend another five seconds but if you don't see the queen after that then you can take a little bit of time and look a little bit closer because there are eggs on this frame and they're standing straight up so she probably was here either today or yesterday and again it's not a big deal if you don't see the queen you don't have to see the queen every time you open the hive or almost ever you're looking for is signs of a healthy queen that means a strong laying pattern lots of eggs larva pupa baby bees in all three stages of their life cycle unless of course it's the fall or the winter and the queen is possibly not lying at that time and if you can't see the eggs inside the cells because there are too many bees on it slightly blow on them and they'll get out of the way rotate the frame so that you can get the sunlight inside the cells and then i see that there are eggs inside these open cells and it's not sunny enough to be able to get the light inside the cells then bring uh the flashlight on your phone or a headlamp or just a regular flashlight to shine inside the cells and if you have uh trouble seeing things that small then there are different magnifiers that you can get that will magnify anywhere from a small handheld one to electronic ones well i'm not seeing a point on this frame either so let's try another frame all right try it again look at the frame in thirds spend just five seconds and now this side do you see her she was on the first side she's actually not a very skittish queen so a little bit easier to spot her and not too dark so she doesn't blend in with the dark comb it's good to get to know what your queens look like because it'll be easier to spot them i had a queen i was very dark and so i didn't see her for weeks and weeks and weeks and then when i finally did see her i noticed that she was almost entirely black she was blending in with the darker honeycomb you don't want to keep the frames of the queen on it out for too long so she was on one of the first or second frames don't put it outside the box and lean it against the side put it back in the hive and pull out another frame [Music]

Channel: Beekeeping Made Simple

Views: 107,012

Keywords: how to spot the queen, queen spotting, queen bee, beekeeping for beginners, how to spot a queen that's hard to find, how to find the queen bee in your hive, why can't i find my queen, queenspotting, beginner beekeeping, beekeeping 101, online beekeeping course, online beekeeping class

Id: grOyvr4y9xY

Length: 7min 43sec (463 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 13 2020