Hello BEE-L,
      On 6/17/99 Tom Barret wrote about using what he called a Queen
Isolator to avoid having to find the queen. Unfortunately there are times
when one MUST find the queen. For us hobbyist beekeepers one of these times
comes at the worst time-ie when the hive population is really huge (like two
or three layers deep on the frames) and also when the hive is very
aggressive (like they fly up at your face as soon as you barely crack the
inner cover). If such a hive is very productive and has overwintered well
AND if it is remote from humans then normally one might tend to leave it be,
or at worst one could carry out anti-swarm procedures by shaking frames or
brushing frames in order to carry out a Demaree. A backyard hobby beekeeper
however needs to do something about such a hive in a more benign, less
disruptive way in order to reclaim his backyard and to keep his neighbors
from complaining. The standard advice in this case is to requeen, which
means you MUST find the old queen.
        I have tried just about every method that has ever been described in
print-and some that aren't in print to find the queen in this type of
situation. I have tried the upside-down version of the Queen Isolator that
Tom alludes to, as described in the ABJ. It didn't work because, a) these
particular bees' response to smoke was to move UP and not DOWN through the
excluder and,b) because this particular queen, I am convinced, could fly
(and did).
        About the only method that I have consistently had success with
under the above described situation is to MOVE THE HIVE a short distance and
then leave behind a nucleus colony to recapture the foragers from the moved
colony. Then, about a day or two or three later-after the mean old foragers
have gone back to the old hive stand- the moved colony can EASILY be gone
through for queen finding. The bees are no longer two or three deep on the
frames. They no longer erupt in a cloud when you crack the inner cover and
they no longer dive-bomb your face in a ferocious attack. The left-behind
nucleus colony then contains the new queen for reconstructing the old colony
on the original spot.
        I would appreciate it if some of you other BEE-L members would
comment on my method, but it is the only method that I have found to be a
reasonable one for aggressive hives in a close-to-the-neighbors type of
situation.
                                        Sincerely,
                                                Ernie Huber