Where in the Cluster is the Queen?

[Grandma_DOG]

I did a double cutout this weekend far, far away from home while on a business trip. Stayed for the weekend at a friend's ranch house in West Texas, and found two feral hives to cut out.

The first was a dead out, fairly fresh. Dozens of bees butt up in the comb just inches from honey. Robbers led me to the hive in a wall.

The second was in an upside down stock tank pinned down by 3-5 tons of scrap steel. You'll see the video when I post it.  Anyway, I cut out the comb in the afternoon but I missed the queen. She shrank back to the back of the stock tank and the bees began to cluster. I abandoned the attempt to get her for a steak dinner with my friends at the country club and figured I'd get the cluster in the morning. Morning came with a light rain so the bees were there and not flying.  BUt I didn't know how far up in the cluster the queen is. Is she at the very very top, or 1/3 down from the top or dead center at 1/2 from the top?  I used field expedient improvisation and caught 1/2 the cluster in a dustpan. Bee butts fanning told me I got her. But I still don't know where the queen is when bees cluster.

JP your wisdom is solicited...

PS. the cotton honey the hive had was premium stuff.

[Kathyp]

jp will give you a masters answer.  i will only tell you what i have found.

it depends on the hive.  i have had some sit on the brood comb and wait to be picked up and had others run for the hills.  i have found that if i work from the outside toward the brood comb, she will usually be pretty easy to spot.  not so much that you always see her, but you see the behavior of the bees around her.  that's not something i can explain.  maybe jp or iddee can.  i do know that once you recognize it, it jumps out at you in your own hives and in cutouts.

[Grandma_DOG]

Maybe I need to clarify. I had already cut out all of the combs and missed her. She ran to the back. 

Once you wait a few hours all the other bees cluster together around her in a semi-circle arc hanging from the roof. The question is where in that hanging cluster does the queen reside? At the top, top 1/3 or 1/2 way down?

[iddee]

None of the above................

A cluster would cook any bee that did not rotate from the inside out, then chill if the weather was cold, if they stayed on the outside. Queen, workers, drones, all rotate according to their body heat.

[JP]

Grandma, I think I am decent at finding queens but Iddee could tell you better where she might be. I was never one to go into a cluster and pull the queen out. I'm more of a shake them into a catch box and find her there.

From my experience 1/3 from the top of the cluster seems to be a good general guage, but honestly, she could be anywhere in a cluster, especially if she's very active.


...JP