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Author Topic: Queen spotting.  (Read 2203 times)

Offline Spear

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Queen spotting.
« on: August 24, 2013, 07:20:38 am »
As you all might know by now I'm very new at this whole beekeeping thing but have jumped in at the deepend with 12 hives - 10 bought from the widow of a 2nd generation beekeeper & 2 from the bee club. The 10 hives are on my mothers property and the other 2 are on my tiny garden. Today I decided to see if I could spot the queen in my 2 garden hives. In the 1st hive I only spotted new emerging bees, capped beood, young brood & eggs, didn't see the queen but know she is there because of the eggs. Closed up the hive happy that all is well there. 2nd hive - lots of capped brood, young brood & eggs. Then to great delight I see her! A lovely bright yellow queen just happily doing her job. I was so excited I almost did a victory dance with the frame in my hand then remembered that would not be a goot idea an carefully replaced the frame and compleated my inspection before closeing up the hive. A good beekeeping day if I do say so myself :D
Tried to video tape my inspections but with my camera man with my mother is was not so sucsessful...

Online BeeMaster2

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Re: Queen spotting.
« Reply #1 on: August 24, 2013, 08:10:21 am »
Congratulations Spear. Now you know you can spot them. When I do my inspections and training on inspections I look for brood, the health of the brood and I look until I see eggs or at least freshly hatched brood. After that I close up the hive. Being your first year, inspections will help you learn what they should look like and you need to learn. With all of the hives you now have try to rotate the inspections around the hives. The less you disrupt them the stronger they will bee and the more honey they will produce. Take time to sit and watch the front of your hives. You will learn a lot from that. I have three hives that I have to get into this weekend and I know that from what I see going on outside of the hives and what is being dropped in the oil trays.
Jim
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin

Offline MsCarol

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Re: Queen spotting.
« Reply #2 on: August 24, 2013, 11:37:38 am »
It is a THRILL to see the queen for the first time.

The one in the big hive is a bright yellow lady. The smaller hive's queen is darker, almost orange.

I realize new beeks do tend to check things more frequently then maybe the bees would like, but I love to know what is going on in there. I do need to / or think I should replenish the feeder in the top of the small hive. I gave up on the baggie and just set the boardman feeder inside on top with a box around it and the "upper entrance" hole stuffed with grass. Looks like we will get a dry....although hot..... next few days which will improve the foragers mood.

Offline Wolfer

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Re: Queen spotting.
« Reply #3 on: August 24, 2013, 10:34:59 pm »
When I first got my bees I was in them so much my buddies said if you look up bee pest in the dictionary it had my picture.
I have enough hives anymore I can do an inspection every couple days without getting in them too often.
When you first start there's a lot to learn and this is how you do it. Woody

Offline OldMech

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Re: Queen spotting.
« Reply #4 on: August 25, 2013, 02:19:42 am »
LOL!! I wondered who that picture was of under Bee Pest :)  I hid when they tried to get my picture to update the dictionary.
   
   I have a friend that sells queens, and when I voiced my personal trouble in FINDING my queens, he put me to work looking through his Nuc's..  He wouldn't let me catch the queens for him, but made me find them. In the three frame Nuc's it wasn't quite as hard. In about an hour, I went from not being able to see them at all, to finding them on the frames even if someone else was holding said frame.  Like anything else, it just takes practice.
   If you know someone who is in the business of queens, don't be afraid to ask if you can help spot them. They have a lot of them to find in a short time. it helped me a lot!!
    For a true challenge, come on over and I will let you try to spot one of the feral queens I have.. they are colored exactly like the bees that surround them. Yellow and black abdomen, so I seldom attempt to find them, but do on occasion spot them during an inspection, and I always have to wonder HOW on earth I managed it.
39 Hives and growing.  Havent found the end of the comfort zone yet.

Offline homemaid

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Re: Queen spotting.
« Reply #5 on: August 25, 2013, 08:29:29 am »
I also am very new to beekeeping... We started by removing bees from a hallow in our maple tree. The first we got a lot of comb with larvae and such I put into frames. Well they made a new queen. About a week later the queen emerged from the tree via a screen cone. Hubby saw her and we got her in a queen catcher. Well every time we inspect the hives (which I'm sure is way too much)  I take pictures. well we were wondering about hive 2 if the queen was still there. So we decided to check again the next day and really look for her. I started looking at our latest set of photos enlarging them and I found her on one of the frames. I was so excited. I thought we would never find her not being sure what we were looking for. She was much larger and golden, a great sight to see....

Offline capt44

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Re: Queen spotting.
« Reply #6 on: August 26, 2013, 02:05:31 pm »
The way I setup to look for a queen in a hive is to stand to the side of the hive.
I go to the brood box which can be upper in the spring or lower later on in the season.
I remove the furthest frame and then the closest frame.
I then start removing frames and inspecting them.
That gal can run around the edge of a frame quicker than greased lightening.
But look at the bees on a frame, sometimes she'll leave a clear trail behind her where the bees have parted for her passing.
Bees will be tending to her, pointed toward her (several of them).
When I spot her I usually mark her if she's not already marked.
That way I can keep up on how the hive is doing.
Richard Vardaman (capt44)

Offline TNBeeLady

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Re: Queen spotting.
« Reply #7 on: August 28, 2013, 10:11:54 am »
It is definitely exciting to spot the queen!  I'm still new at this, and to me it can sometimes be hard to spot even a marked queen when there are tons of bees on the frames covering her up.  But when I spot one who is not marked, Victory Dancing is what I do!!  :laugh:

 

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