Queen Finding.

It is a skill, and one that can (really has) to be learned and it requires the eye to be tuned in.

I was taught by Mrs Thom of Turriff, now deceased to do it and she invited me to her house to spend an afternoon with her bees finding queens, and after the first dozen or so I had it and I think there lies the key. Quantity.

One go at a hive every week or so is not much of a go really, a go at 40 odd hives is.

So if you are learning to find queens find someone with more than ten or so to play with and get after it. We all have to learn it, and it is a matter of practice.

PH

Brilliant advice - so, is there anyone in North Hampshire or thereabouts who would be willing to let me spend an afternoon finding their queens? I'd bring cakes!

Poly Hive said:

It is a skill, and one that can (really has) to be learned and it requires the eye to be tuned in.

I was taught by Mrs Thom of Turriff, now deceased to do it and she invited me to her house to spend an afternoon with her bees finding queens, and after the first dozen or so I had it and I think there lies the key. Quantity.

One go at a hive every week or so is not much of a go really, a go at 40 odd hives is.

So if you are learning to find queens find someone with more than ten or so to play with and get after it. We all have to learn it, and it is a matter of practice.

PH

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Actually, this more sense it makes. A question, if you couldn't find anybody to let you look at theirs (sorry, no double entendre meant), I wonder if a sample of, say, 40 odd video clips would do as a starting point. Do you think this would work? I know it is not the same, but do you think it would useful or a waste of time?

sally

Sorry to say not the same at all. Bees are 3d not 2d, and it makes an odds.

For instance I tackled a three brood box colony with the top box with five frames and some wild comb. I was convinced she was in the wild comb and studied it for ages taking it apart slowly.

Gave up as it was obvious she was not there and started on the 2nd bb and she was there on the fourth comb, and it was my peripheral vision that spotted her so it was almost as if my subconscious found her not my concious looking.

Experience you see. And the only way to gain it is to... well gain it.

PH

Poly Hive said:

Sorry to say not the same at all. Bees are 3d not 2d, and it makes an odds.



PH

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Well, I did wonder, but it was worth a try. For me, because I am still new, I do not want to spend too much time looking for the Q because do not want to keep the hive open too long. Therefore, sometimes I see her, but mostly I do not. If I see eggs, that'll do for now sadly. Hopefully, in a few more years, I might be a tad more experienced (unless I do get chance to do as you smartly recommend), but only time will tell...

The only time you NEED to find the queen is when you AS and even then it is not utterly essential.

PH

Poly Hive said:

The only time you NEED to find the queen is when you AS and even then it is not utterly essential.

PH

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Thanks PH. Makes me feel better, though truth be told...a little more experience goes a very long way, and would love to have a fraction of the knowledge of some of you on this site have.

Poly Hive said:

It is a skill, and one that can (really has) to be learned and it requires the eye to be tuned in.

I was taught by Mrs Thom of Turriff, now deceased to do it and she invited me to her house to spend an afternoon with her bees finding queens, and after the first dozen or so I had it and I think there lies the key. Quantity.

One go at a hive every week or so is not much of a go really, a go at 40 odd hives is.

So if you are learning to find queens find someone with more than ten or so to play with and get after it. We all have to learn it, and it is a matter of practice.

PH

Click to expand...

My other half gives me a lift!(since my heart attack) from day one she spotted unmarked Queens from a mile off!,futher more her reaction to the odd sting is zilch!makes you sick don;t it ?

John Wilkinson

PH - you're working towards the general concept of 'hive years', where exposure is a product of both numbers of colonies and numbers of years.

Five years with ten colonies gives more exposure than ten years with three colonies, etc. It doesn't work at the extreme - one year with 100 colonies, or 100 years with 1 colony, but it's not a bad concept.

It depends on the individual whether exposure equates to experience. The other pitfall is, say, the ten year 'expert' who's simply had one year of beekeeping repeated ten times, because they can't or won't do anything differently.


Back to queen finding. Unless you have a strain with clear colour contrast, generally what highlights the queen is not her shape, but her leg colour (tends to be much redder) and her movement. Whereas the workers subtly zig-zag as they traverse the comb, the queen is much more purposeful and linear.

Look on the shaded side of the comb first. Scan round the edges, then the middle, then turn and repeat for the other side. Maintain a gap and work logically through the brood frames and boxes. Don't look for a queen in a box with a another box below that she can hide in. Look for the queen on frames where she would be laying.

I'm at the point now where I don't consciously look for queens, but I'm quickly aware of them even when unmarked. Virgins have a different motion but even they're possible to attune to, with practice, although I'm slower at this earlier in the season.

For video clips to work, you need to see a lot without a queen, with the odd queen clip present randomly, so that you don't fall into the "I know she's on this frame I'll find her eventually" brute-force approach. Not knowing which frame she's on is important as that's how it is in the hive.

Poly Hive said:

The only time you NEED to find the queen is when you AS and even then it is not utterly essential.

PH

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It's fairly important when clipping and marking

i find with my girls, in the smaller colonies(early in the season) the least smoke used the easyer it is to find the queen(she dosent get a warning that u are coming so cant find a hiding place) but in larger colonies expirience helps alot! and a flash of red legs in the peripheral vision hapens very often when u are not looking for her!
but when i do find her i get her marked straight away. a big white spot runing around the frame is so much easyer to see in a sea of black!

I believe RAF pilots scan the sky in up and down motion from left to right then back again from right to left in sections when looking for conflicting air traffic. look for the queen bulldozing her way in straighter line than the workers. Try to learn to ignore the fat blokes. I scan my frames in the same way. It works for me. Andy

I only started beekeeping a couple of years ago. At first, while at my local Bee club, I found I was always finding the unmarked queens. But this year on my own hives I have only managed to find and mark 2 Qs and have not as yet found the other unmarked Qs. But I always check for laying pattern, eggs etc to make sure queen is still there.

DanBee said:

Back to queen finding. Unless you have a strain with clear colour contrast, generally what highlights the queen is not her shape, but her leg colour (tends to be much redder) and her movement. Whereas the workers subtly zig-zag as they traverse the comb, the queen is much more purposeful and linear.

Look on the shaded side of the comb first. Scan round the edges, then the middle, then turn and repeat for the other side. Maintain a gap and work logically through the brood frames and boxes. Don't look for a queen in a box with a another box below that she can hide in. Look for the queen on frames where she would be laying.

I'm at the point now where I don't consciously look for queens, but I'm quickly aware of them even when unmarked. Virgins have a different motion but even they're possible to attune to, with practice, although I'm slower at this earlier in the season.

For video clips to work, you need to see a lot without a queen, with the odd queen clip present randomly, so that you don't fall into the "I know she's on this frame I'll find her eventually" brute-force approach. Not knowing which frame she's on is important as that's how it is in the hive.

Click to expand...

Thank you, great queen finding tips - I'll give it a try.

DanBee said:

It's fairly important when clipping and marking

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Tee hee - knowing me I'll end up with a hive full of clipped and marked drones!

By all means practise on your drones but do remove them after wards else things are going to get very complex....

PH

DanBee said:

I'm at the point now where I don't consciously look for queens, but I'm quickly aware of them even when unmarked. Virgins have a different motion but even they're possible to attune to, with practice, although I'm slower at this earlier in the season.

For video clips to work, you need to see a lot without a queen, with the odd queen clip present randomly, so that you don't fall into the "I know she's on this frame I'll find her eventually" brute-force approach. Not knowing which frame she's on is important as that's how it is in the hive.

Click to expand...

It's hard to explain that odd instinct for telling if there's a queen there... a combination of spotting the slightly different "patch of behaviour" by the surrounding bees, the movement of the queen, and the different patch of shape and colour (although I must say I've never noticed about the legs!). Experience is the thing, but I've found that some children are good at spotting them too.

Years ago at my last apiary, a friend's daughter spotted an unmarked queen with ease. She said "I could tell because she's the grown-up one"! Ever since then, when I want to find a queen I have tried to imagine when I worked in a playscheme, and needed to spot the staff amongst all the scampering, preoccupied kids. Not a perfect analogy of course, but it works for me!

Anyone in the Manchester area who has lots of hives and is willing to teach me how to find an unmarked queen, I would be eternally grateful. I just know they've superceded green Madge, and new Madge is obviously in there but I would just love to see her. I think as we have inexperienced members sometimes inspecting with us, it would be a good idea to mark her so I can keep an eye out. I just can't seem to find her. Notice how I club myself in with the experienced haha, my mentor reckons I'm a natural. I'm getting really good with the ladies I put it all down to the advice I've been given on here, and how calm my mentor is when teaching me. Now I lead inspections...not bad for a phobic huh?

kazmcc said:

Anyone in the Manchester area who has lots of hives and is willing to teach me how to find an unmarked queen, I would be eternally grateful. I just know they've superceded green Madge, and new Madge is obviously in there but I would just love to see her. I think as we have inexperienced members sometimes inspecting with us, it would be a good idea to mark her so I can keep an eye out. I just can't seem to find her. Notice how I club myself in with the experienced haha, my mentor reckons I'm a natural. I'm getting really good with the ladies I put it all down to the advice I've been given on here, and how calm my mentor is when teaching me. Now I lead inspections...not bad for a phobic huh?

Click to expand...

Brilliant!

Perhaps the grown-up bee analogy would work? When looking for the queen try to imagine looking for a teacher in a busy classroom - one who doesn't want any more to deal with and has just found an excuse to slip off out of the spotlight via a side door - whilst trying to avoid attracting attention!

When I try to find my queen to actually do something with her I do the following (an original piece of PH advice):

I divide the brood into three sets of frames and check and remove each set with a small time gap between set searches. This is intended to give the queen time to move onto the frames. Eventually I spot her...

Sam