Most of us know the queen can occur anywhere in the hive.  I have had
lines of queens that like to drop to the floor of the hive or run to the
walls, making it very difficult to find her.
 
 
You can mark the queen with non-toxic paint.  However, this doesn't
work as well as you migtht expect.  Training your eye to find an unmarked
queen often works better.
 
I think we tend to focus on looking for the paint rather than clues that
pinpoint the queen.  The trick seems to be not to look too hard at every
bee, you will never find the queen.  Rather, scan each frame, looking for a
pattern difference.  As she moves about with attendants there is a kind
of small wheel-shaped pattern that stands out from the mat of bees and a
kind of group movement that occurs.
 
In our research, we have to find hundreds of queens.  As one observor
reported, some beekeepers do this easily, others never get the hang of it.
Good eyesight helps.
 
Jerry
Jerry Bromenshenk
The University of Montana
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