At the beginning of your learning about beekeeping, it may seem to you that you will never be able to locate the queen bee. However, as many times as you try and succeed it will get better and better.
The need for this can come from different reasons. In one situation you may need to search for a sign telling you if it is still present, and in other, you will need to locate the queen bee and actually find it in the beehive. In order to make sure that your queen is still alive, you should look for her eggs. If there are some eggs present it means that there is a queen and she is active. If you spot uncapped brood (or larvae) you should know that the queen is there, or at least it was a few days ago.
What is the way to more easily locate the queen bee?
Usually, the queen bee is located somewhere in the centre of the hive. However, if you start from the centre as well, your work will get messy and you will be unorganized. This is why you should start from the frames that are at the ends of the beehive. You can inspect them thoroughly and set them aside. Hereby you will make more space for more accurate and thorough inspection. If you are lucky and by any chance, you find the queen at the beginning, then you will do a great job!
Most often, the queen bee is located on the frames containing brood. So, starting from the ends, check every frame and get closer to the centre. If you notice some cells filled with pollen and brood, instead of only honey, you have found the brood nest. Going from the ends towards the centre, this kind of brood nest surroundings will start appearing gradually. So, you should go through each and every one of that kind of frames, smoothly lifting them and trying to locate the queen bee.
Do not forget to check for both sides of the frames. Another advice is that you should make a distinction between the frames you have already checked and those that have not been checked. Leave some space between them, therefore preventing the queen bee to transfer from the unchecked to the checked ones. She can move very fast, so she can easily transfer on the already checked frames, and you may think that she is not there because you did not find her.
If you face some problem and do not succeed to locate the queen bee do not be disappointed. You can try one more time. But, make sure that the second time is the last time. If you do this several times in a row you may agitate the bees.
Our biggest advice is to inspect all of the frames above the beehive! You must do so in order to make sure that the queen falls into the beehive again if in any case, she falls!
Bees are just amazing! They have such an incredible organization, and if you do not locate the queen bee because of her bigger body it is not an extreme problem. Thus, you can try and locate the queen bee according to your bees‘ behaviour. They are usually parting the way where the queen goes, and are standing facing her when she stops. Aren’t they magnificent?!
For additional information about brood inspection click here.