How to find the queen bee in a hive

A colony of tens of thousands of bees has only one queen, but with a little practice she is easy to tell apart:

• Abdomen — long and tapering, clearly extending past her folded wings. On a worker the wings reach almost to the tip of the abdomen.
• Legs — longer than a worker's, often lighter, brownish-amber. This makes the queen look "taller" on the comb.
• Thorax — broader, often darker and smoother, without dense hair.
• Behaviour — she moves calmly and deliberately, peeks into cells and lays eggs. When the frame is exposed to light she usually walks to the shaded side of the comb.
• Retinue — a ring of workers surrounds her, heads turned towards her, feeding and grooming her. Such a "halo" of bees is often the quickest clue.

A young, unmated queen is smaller and more restless than a laying queen and is easy to mistake for a worker, so in the first weeks after emergence it is better to confirm her presence by eggs.

The queen stays where she lays: in the middle of the brood nest, on combs witheggs and young larvae. Outer frames with honey and pollen can be checked quickly — she is rarely there. In multi-box hives, start with the box holding the most fresh brood.

The best time is a warm, calm day, roughly between 10 am and 3 pm. Foragers are out in the field, there are fewer bees in the hive and the colony reacts more calmly. In cold weather, rain or before a storm the bees are defensive and opening the nest chills the brood — postpone the inspection.

1. Go easy on smoke. A few puffs at the entrance and lightly over the top bars once the lid is off. Too much smoke sets the colony in motion and the queen starts running across the combs.
2. Set the first frame aside. Lift the outer frame (usually honey), check it and put it in a frame rest or an empty box. This gives you room to slide the next frames calmly.
3. Check the frame you are lifting first. As you lift a frame, look straight away at the side facing you — the queen moves away from light to the other side of the comb and onto neighbouring frames. Then turn the frame and check the other side, and finally glance at the exposed face of the next frame in the hive.
4. Frame by frame. Work systematically from one side of the nest to the other without skipping. Hold the frame over the hive so that if the queen falls, she lands back in the nest.
5. Do not shake. Shaking bees off while looking for the queen risks dropping her in the grass or crushing her. Tilt the comb and scan slowly — edges and corners first, then the centre.
6. Check the walls. If she is not on any frame, look at the box walls and floor and at the bees on the frame you set aside.

If you do not find her on the first attempt, do not drag the inspection out. Fresh eggs are enough to know the queen is there — you can come back in a few days.

A marked queen catches the eye immediately, and the colour tells you her year. She is marked with a paint pen or a small disc glued to her thorax — often numbered, which allows precise record keeping. The colour follows the last digit of the year:

Mark the queen in a marking cage or press-in cage without squeezing her abdomen. After fixing the disc, hold her for a moment until the glue sets, then release her onto a brood comb.

Before you declare a colony queenless, look for evidence:

• Eggs. A single egg standing at the bottom of a cell means the queen has laid within roughly the last three days. If there are eggs, the queen is most likely there, just hiding.
• Emergency queen cells. Queen cells drawn out on the comb face from worker cells show the colony has lost its queen and is raising a new one. Do not destroy them unless you have another queen to introduce.
• Drone-laying queen. Drone brood (domed cappings) in worker cells, laid in a compact pattern, points to a queen laying only unfertilised eggs. She needs to be replaced.
• Laying workers. Several eggs per cell, eggs on the cell walls and scattered drone brood mean workers have started laying. The colony has been queenless for a long time and needs prompt action, e.g. uniting with another colony.

No eggs or young larvae and no queen cells can also mean a break in laying or a young queen that has not started yet. Insert a frame with eggs from another colony — if queen cells appear on it within a few days, the colony is queenless.

The free QueenRadar app for Android detects the queen and queen cells live — point the phone camera at a lifted frame and the detection appears on screen. It works offline, so mobile coverage at the apiary does not matter. The Magnifier mode zooms in and reads the number on the queen's marking disc, and saved photos and session history help you compare inspections.

If you already have a comb photo, check it with the online tester — the model marks the queen and queen cells without installing anything. While you are at the hive, also check varroa levels: the mite drop countercounts mites on a photo of the bottom board.