# Can't ID the Queen



## Paul O (Sep 13, 2004)

I am attempting to re-queen one of my hives but I canât locate the old queen. The last thing I did was to put an excluder between the two boxes to isolate her and minimize the area I had to look through. Even though I only had to examine one box, I still couldnât find her. Iâm going to keep at it assuming its something I will eventually pick up but I was wondering if there are any tricks to help ID the queen.


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## TxGypsy (Nov 23, 2006)

I'm betting she is a carniolan queen. I have several hives that I have examined inch by inch and still have not actually seen the queen. I'm normally very good at spotting queens and this is very frustrating to me. I take my queen marking tools whenever I go through these hives and if I can ever catch any of them I am going to mark them. I never thought I'd ever want to mark a queen until I got carnies!

Try putting an empty frame with no foundation of any kind into the center of the brood nest and let the bees begin to draw out new comb. I find that queens will normally be found on these frames in about a week. New comb seems to be irresistible to them.


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## Paul O (Sep 13, 2004)

Thanks TxMex, I'll give it a try.


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## WildPrGardens (Mar 8, 2014)

How are you positive the queen is _not_ in the other box?


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## beegrowing (Apr 1, 2014)

TxMex said:


> I'm betting she is a carniolan queen. I have several hives that I have examined inch by inch and still have not actually seen the queen. I'm normally very good at spotting queens and this is very frustrating to me. I take my queen marking tools whenever I go through these hives and if I can ever catch any of them I am going to mark them. I never thought I'd ever want to mark a queen until I got carnies!
> 
> Try putting an empty frame with no foundation of any kind into the center of the brood nest and let the bees begin to draw out new comb. I find that queens will normally be found on these frames in about a week. New comb seems to be irresistible to them.


 I got my first package last year and it was Carnies and I never saw my queen all year. I got a second package of them this year and I got a marked queen with it;although I didn't like the idea either. It was worth it! ha-on-me.Glad I caved in. Seeing that yellow dot and getting to watch her a little while, during inspections, Really makes me happy. She does look a heck of a lot like the others but of course Is queen size. I'm Really trying to train my eye with her but so far no luck looking in my other two hives.

I've seen pictures of queens with some space around them,or a ring of workers facing the queen as something to look for, but mine is always crowded right in there with everybody doing their own thing every which way.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

I had paid to have a queen marked ONCE. With in a week of installing that marked queen she was no longer marked. Being new I called the guy that sold the queen and he said that the workers some times didn't like their royalty marked up so they clean her off.

I have found if I put a frame of brood in a hive from a different hive and wait about an hour the queen will come to investigate.
Also it helps to have a empty brood box. pull the frames one at a time inspect them carefully scanning from one edge to the other and try to cover the whole from with the scan. Once finished put the frame in the empty box. Many a time I have found the queen on the very last frame, I also don't like to smoke the bees before that inspection.

We have mostly carnie cross breeds.

 Al


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## Paul O (Sep 13, 2004)

WildPrGardens said:


> How are you positive the queen is _not_ in the other box?


There is uncapped brood in the box I'm looking at.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

You are fine as long as you are seeing worker brood and even eggs. You can spend a lot of time looking for the queen and it isn't really needed.

 Al


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## Dutch 106 (Feb 12, 2008)

Hey Guys,
If you cannot find the queen on one side or the other look for fresh eggs whichever has eggs has a queen if neither side doesn't you squished her. There are various ways to encourage a hive to raise new queens. We used to raise our own with one expensive new queen (breeding stock) that we would breed from to keep out genetics were we wanted them.
My favorite was The Tompson method (I think thats it) were you take a frame of fresh eggs and crush the other cells down around just leaving 20-30s cells with egg a serated then lay the frame on its side on a couple bricks between the brood bodies. a lot of the time a thriving hive will draw out all those cells then you. then before the old queen gets pissed move them over to a nuc box with a couple frames of eggs and pollen and honey then 3-4 days before they hatch spred them out a bunch nucs to get them breed and started. Unless you need them right away.
Dutch


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