Earlier this summer I went queen hunting, and I had the pleasure of spending the day with my friend and beekeeping mentor Michael Embry and a couple of his students, finding and marking queens.
If you have never watched it happen, queen hunting is exactly what it sounds like: you open a hive, lift the frames one at a time, and slowly search the crowd for one specific bee among thousands. When you finally spot her, the feeling is hard to describe. It is part relief, part triumph, and a reminder of how much a single bee matters to the whole colony.
Why Beekeepers Go Queen Hunting
The short answer is that finding the queen makes everything else easier. Once you can locate her on a frame, you can check her condition, confirm she is laying, and, if she is marked, track her age from one season to the next. A marked queen also stands out during a busy inspection, so you spend less time hunting and more time reading the hive.
Most of the time, though, you do not even need to lay eyes on the queen to know she is doing her job. Beekeepers judge queen performance through brood inspection. You open the brood box, where the queen lives, and look for a solid pattern of capped comb. Plenty of capped brood in a tight, even pattern tells you the queen is healthy and laying well. Spotty or sparse brood is a signal that something may be off.
There is one important caveat. When temperatures climb in the heat of summer, even a strong, healthy queen will slow her egg laying. So before you judge a queen too harshly on a hot day, factor in the weather. The bees are responding to conditions, not just to the queen.
Finding and Marking the Queen
Spotting the queen takes practice. She is the largest bee in the colony, with a longer, more tapered abdomen, and she tends to move with purpose while the workers circle around her. Once you find her, a small dot of colored paint on her thorax makes her far easier to relocate on your next visit, and the color follows a standard system that records the year she was introduced. If you want the full walkthrough, including what each color means by year, see our guide on how to mark a queen bee.
The day I spent with Michael reminded me of the season I had to requeen a weak hive. That time we inspected over eighteen hives and recorded the performance of each one, tracking it through the life of the colony. In the weeks that followed, right in the height of the honey flow, we went back through for at least one more full inspection. Marking made every one of those follow-ups faster.
When Is the Best Time to Requeen?
This is a question I think about often, and I have read plenty of conflicting opinions on it. Some beekeepers swear by spring, others make the case for late summer so the colony heads into winter behind a young, productive queen. After years of going back and forth, I have mostly made peace with the idea that the bees know better than I do. They will tell you when a queen is failing long before the calendar does, through their brood pattern and their behavior. If you want the full process from start to finish, our complete guide to requeening a hive walks through when, why, and how to replace a failing queen.
FAQs About Queen Hunting: How to Find the Queen Bee in Your Hive
What is queen hunting in beekeeping?
Queen hunting is the practice of opening a hive and searching through the frames to locate the queen bee among the thousands of workers. Beekeepers do it to check her condition, confirm she is laying, and mark her so she is easier to find on future inspections.
How do you find the queen bee in a hive?
Look for the largest bee on the frame, with a longer, more tapered abdomen than the workers. She moves deliberately and is often surrounded by a circle of attendant bees. Working through the brood frames slowly and methodically gives you the best chance of spotting her.
Why do beekeepers mark the queen bee?
Marking the queen with a small dot of colored paint makes her far easier to spot during inspections and records the year she was introduced. The color follows a worldwide convention, so a glance tells you roughly how old she is.
Does hot weather affect how many eggs the queen lays?
Yes. In high summer temperatures, even a healthy, strong queen will often slow her egg laying. Before judging queen performance on a hot day, factor in the weather rather than assuming the queen is failing.
