# Red spot on bee?



## Neroli (Apr 19, 2012)

Hi everyone, I'm new here, so please excuse my jumping right in. Everyone seems pretty friendly here so...

We checked our 2nd year hive today, and everything looked pretty good in there. But one of the bees had a bright red spot right on her forehead between her eyes. 

I didn't see any others like that or any mites. Does anyone know what that could be?


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Could bee a marked queen, could be a bit ofred proplis stuck to her head, could have been some red pollin.
Hard to tell with out seeing it.

 Al


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## jeremynj (Jun 29, 2011)

It might be a marked queen so she is easier to spot.


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## tom j (Apr 3, 2009)

the color for queen marking is 
color ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, years ending in number ... 
white ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 1 or 6 . 
yellow ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 2 or 7 .. 
red ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 3 or 8 
green ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 4 or 9 ,
blue ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 5 or 0


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## copperkid3 (Mar 18, 2005)

right between her eyes!" But without seeing a pic, it's just going to be a guess on what it really is.
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Neroli said:


> Hi everyone, I'm new here, so please excuse my jumping right in. Everyone seems pretty friendly here so...
> 
> We checked our 2nd year hive today, and everything looked pretty good in there. But one of the bees had* a bright red spot right on her forehead between her eyes. *
> 
> I didn't see any others like that or any mites. Does anyone know what that could be?


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## indypartridge (Oct 26, 2004)

Red pollen is my guess. The bees use their heads to pack pollen into the cells.


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## Neroli (Apr 19, 2012)

Thanks for the ideas, everyone. She was definitely not the queen, just a worker. My grandfather mentioned that sometimes people will mark bees in the hopes of tracking them, but between the eyes? Hopefully it is just pollen. I've not had to deal with mites yet, and I'm hoping that I won't have to, but in all the pictures I've seen of varroas, they are a darker red and are on the bees backs. 

I don't know. If I see another like it, I'll definitely get a picture. Thanks again for your ideas.


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