The Honey Factory

[duluthralphie]

Those bulgy cells on some of your frames... are those drones? If there were queen cells, would they run out longer than that?

I didn’t see any queen cells, I assumed the bulging ones were drone cells, but I am a novice, the others would have to answer that.

I noticed about 10 percent (guesstimate) were bulging and I read 15% of the hive is drones, so that was my guess too.

These are queen cells, I think.

 

[shawluvsbirds]

It seems like it would be totally impossible to spot the queen in the middle of all those bees. But she does seem to stand out doesn't she.

 

[duluthralphie]

It seems like it would be totally impossible to spot the queen in the middle of all those bees. But she does seem to stand out doesn't she.

Finding the unmarked one is really hard. Even with the marking I missed her my first time through the frames. I like to see her so I can be extremely careful putting frames in. Squishing a queen is a nightmare of mine.

 

[OhZark Biddies]

Your queen is all wrong, her butts not black

Lol... her momma had a black butt... she was a carniolan... but she was cross mated and produced both dark and gold bees at the same time...

I have another hive about a half mile from the house that are all pretty yellow Italian looking bees... so I was wondering if these new queens would breed with a yellow drone from that hive... or find a feral drone... or what

so far the new bees from these new queens seem just kinda a blend, so who knows what they are... just mutts I guess

 

[shawluvsbirds]

Finding the unmarked one is really hard. Even with the marking I missed her my first time through the frames. I like to see her so I can be extremely careful putting frames in. Squishing a queen is a nightmare of mine.

And how do you know if your hive is queenless?

 

[OhZark Biddies]

It seems like it would be totally impossible to spot the queen in the middle of all those bees. But she does seem to stand out doesn't she.

I seldom spot the queen... but most times I don’t really look... I just look for open larvae to confirm she’s in there and laying and call it good.

There’s a book that has a bunch of pictures of frames with a queen in amongst the bees... kinda like where’s Waldo... it’s called QueenSpottimg:
https://www.amazon.com/QueenSpottin...es/dp/1635860377#immersive-view_1592844170532

 

[shawluvsbirds]

I seldom spot the queen... but most times I don’t really look... I just look for open larvae to confirm she’s in there and laying and call it good.

There’s a book that has a bunch of pictures of frames with a queen in amongst the bees... kinda like where’s Waldo... it’s called QueenSpottimg:
https://www.amazon.com/QueenSpottin...es/dp/1635860377#immersive-view_1592844170532

I went down the you tube rabbit hole last night watching those bee videos. I was thinking a person must have a lot of experience to bee able to spot the queen.

 

[OhZark Biddies]

I didn’t see any queen cells, I assumed the bulging ones were drone cells, but I am a novice, the others would have to answer that.

I noticed about 10 percent (guesstimate) were bulging and I read 15% of the hive is drones, so that was my guess too.

These are queen cells, I think.View attachment 2206786View attachment 2206787

There are often a few ‘queen cups’ that the bees build, but don’t use... but if they do begin elongating one on the bottom of the frame, then that’s a swarm cell...

Here’s a pretty good reference link
https://beemaniacs.com/2015/04/18/cells-cells-and-cells/

 

[OhZark Biddies]

I went down the you tube rabbit hole last night watching those bee videos. I was thinking a person must have a lot of experience to bee able to spot the queen.

A lot of times you can kinda rule out many of the frames and really just look at the brood frames where there is open brood ...

that’s not to say that she might not be off on one of the other frames... and sometimes it’s just dumb luck to find her...

but I think it’s like a lot of things where some folks develop a knack for it...

I didn’t see the queen in my Italian hive at all last year and haven’t seen her this year... but I don’t get into that hive much... I do plan to split it here in a few weeks, so I’ll likely look pretty hard for her then

 

[duluthralphie]

Here is a little page on finding the queen..

https://beekeepinglikeagirl.com/queenspotting-how-to-find-your-queen-bee/

I end up on her website a lot, not that a girl can teach me anything..