bee-keeperIf there is one thing that decides whether your colony will be strong, calm and productive, it is the queen. An old, failing or poorly mated queen gives weak brood, a nervous colony and a small harvest. That is why experienced beekeepers say: you don't raise bees, you raise queens.
How to spot her
The queen is longer and slimmer than the workers, with an elongated abdomen that extends past the wing tips. She moves more slowly and deliberately, and the workers often surround her in a circle, facing her (this is called her “court”). You will find her most easily on the frame with the freshest eggs, in the centre of the brood. Tip: look for eggs first — if there are eggs, the queen is there, even if you don't see her.
Queen mark colors by year
So the beekeeper knows how old a queen is, she is marked with a colored dot on her thorax. The color repeats in a five-year cycle by international convention:
- 2026 — white
- 2027 — yellow
- 2028 — red
- 2029 — green
- 2030 — blue
Marking saves you time and spares your back: instead of finding and watching the queen every time, a single glance tells you how old she is.
Signs something is wrong
Queenlessness is an emergency. You recognise it by:
- No eggs or young brood, while the colony is agitated and “roaring”
- A lot of drone brood scattered in worker cells (a sign of laying workers)
- Several open queen cells the colony is desperately raising
If you suspect queenlessness, don't jump to conclusions — give the colony a frame of open brood from another colony. If they raise queen cells on it, they really are queenless.
When and how to replace the queen
Replace the queen every 1–2 years for the best yield and the least swarming. Do it in the warm half of the season, when there are drones and a flow. The process in brief: find and remove the old queen, wait a few hours for the colony to “feel” she is gone, then introduce the new queen in a cage with food so the bees accept her gradually. Patience is everything here — introducing her too quickly leads to rejection.
A tip from practice
Keep a record of every queen's age. In the app you enter the queen's year for each hive, and the mark color is calculated for you from the cycle — so through the season you can easily see which queen needs replacing, without keeping it all in your head.