Welcome to the Forums Sanman :)
I'll answer these in a generic way, so all new beekeepers can use the info for reference, some may seem common sense, but hopefully I'll list something that helps :)
Your question reminds me of something my father once said about "How you tell WHO the secret servicemen are" answer, they are the ONLY PEOPLE who are NOT looking at the President!!! "They look at the crowd!!!"
To answer your question, the queen has several tendencies to help you find her:She is OFTEN the focus of attention of the workers, there really is a "court of workers" of sorts, not always a picture-perfect circle, but she surely is tended to.
She is generally PALER in color with less pronounced differences in abdominal stripes.
She also has a hairless, thorax (the area where the 6 legs are attached to between the head and abdomen)
Here body is about 1/4 to 1/3 longer than a worker and she has a different "pace" about the way she moves.
She has a real healthy shine, almost a caramel color with Italian bees and very little hair. And when closely weighed against a worker, she is considerably larger in stature.
Her WINGS are shorter than worker-bee wings, she is designed for limited flights for mating and swarming and absconding if necessary.
She tends to "check out a cell" by dipping her head inside to see if it is clean, then turns around to "back into it" to lay the egg. This whole process only takes about 10 seconds or less and onto another cells.
She is the only bee to come out of a cell HEAD FIRST (((EXCEPT))) emerging new born bees.
She pauses often to rest and be fed. Most workers NEVER seem to "just hang out" unless they are guarding or fanning. If you see worker-bees with their heads in the cells they are either storing nectar or feeding larva.
With a healthy hive, she is the only bee that can back into a cell.
As important as the things you look for are the things you DON'T look for:Pay no attention to pollen carriers.
Start looking on frames where eggs (if you can see them - you'll need strong sunlight from behind you to really see into the cells to spot eggs) and look for small larva in the cells - she often works only a frame and the frame on either side of that one during a 2 or 3 day laying session.
Fully capped honey cells are not a good place to look - at least not a good place to start looking.
If you see Waggle Dancers, that isn't her. Often, that kind of activity would be distracting and she may not be near by - just a personal opinion. My thought here is, forager communicate food sources to OTHER forager, rather than wasting time showing younger nurse bees who are to young to forage.
Drones are fat, stumpy, lack an aerodynamic look and the are typically hairy and dull in shine. They are a small percentage in a healthy hive and the queen has NOTHING to do with them in the hive.
HOPE THESE HAVE HELPED... I know many are common sense, but many new members without experience may read this post, so I try to cover all the bases I could think of.
here is a older photo of mine showing the difference in wing length, lack of defined stripes and shiny thorax.
http://www.beemaster.com/honeybee/image950.JPGLet me know if these helped. And again, welcome aboard and happy beekeeping :)
Topic: finding queens (Read 4480 times)