Q&A for How to Identify a Queen Bee

In order to spot the queen, wait until the honeycomb frame is in full sunlight. When the bees come out to warm themselves, you should be able easily to identify the queen, because she'll be the largest bee in the bunch.

Bees from the same colony emit the same pheromone, so they can tell by scent.

I am not sure what your bird feeder looks like or what bird food it dispenses. Bees as well as nectar feeding birds will be attracted to a nectar feeder ( usually a suspended bottle with some kind of drinking trough attached to open end). As the nectar content drops, it is replaced by air. This is not a problem for a bird size creature. A bee is small enough to get caught into the air currents pulling it in through the bottle opening. Placing a netting like material between the trough and the rest of the bottle will prevent bees being pulled into the remaining solution in the bottle. The netting is provided by some nectar feeder manufacturers, otherwise a piece of stocking will do.

Generally no, unless they are forced out of their hive. Most queens who are rejected by their hive are killed.

She would be right in the center of the mass. The swarm surrounds her for protection. Once the swarm determines a good home, it will lead her there.

Yes dancing is one, normally to explain where the food source is and the distance/directions, as well is which is the better nesting site, and to communicate threats, but they communicate all the time with each other through pheromones, mainly inside the hive.

Queen bees are basically the most-important bee in a hive; by laying thousands of eggs a day, she keeps the population of bees (and the production of honey) up for a more-successful hive. While all she does is lay eggs, she is the reason for a healthy hive. Attendant bees see to her every need, while drones are responsible for mating. The workers (also female) travel hundreds of miles to make honey. In short, every bee is needed for his/her part to maintain a hive.

The better question is probably what the difference is between a bee and a hornet, since they're two separate species. Hornets are a type of wasp: they aren't fuzzy, like bees are, and unlike bees they can sting people repeatedly. Hornets also have queens.

You need to pull hive frames out of the hive and inspect them. If you see a tiny white egg in the bottom of any cells, she is laying. Also, if you see capped brood cells, you have had a laying queen in the hive within the last 72 hours. Most often, if you see capped brood, there is a laying queen whether you can find her or not.

Nope. She will simply roam around the hive laying eggs wherever she finds space. However, she usually tends to be towards the bottom and center of a hive.

The queen bee mates with drones. They have only one job: to mate with the queen.

While queen size can vary because of genetics, a mated queen typically is larger than a virgin. Determining the difference takes some experience, and the natural variation can make this a difficult task. The best way to determine if you have a mated queen is to inspect the hive frames. If there are tiny white eggs in the bottom of comb cells, or there are capped brood cells, then you have a mated queen.

Most likely not, as the queen does not leave the hive since the workers do all of the work. It could be a foreign breed of bee that traveled from another country because of warmer weather, or possibly be a wasp or hornet.

The black comes from the leftover color of old cocoons spun by bee larvae before they change into bees that we would recognize. When the queen has finished laying in that particular brood area, the bees will often fill those hatched cells with honey after they have cleaned them. It is perfectly safe to harvest honey from these combs via centrifugal extraction or the crush and strain technique. The wax would not be fit for "comb honey" due to its stiffness.

The structure of a hive of insects is very different than a community of people or other animals. There are some descriptions of hive colonies which make the queen out to be more of a baby-making-hostage, while others will portray her as the ruler of the hive. While from our perspective it may seem that the bees work as servants to the queen, there is actually a more mutual exchange going on. In an established hive, the queen bee will be the mother of all hive members - which means that all the members of the hive are sisters. This creates a massive incentive for them to work together to survive and help their mother (the queen) to continue to expand their family.

The bumblebee "Bombus Impatiens" are non-aggressive and the species is easy to identify. They have a furry abdomen with 1-4 yellow stripes. Bumble bees nest in holes in the ground, under stairs and inside concrete steps or anywhere else they can find shade and be left relatively alone. The Carpenter bee is a much different animal. They are territorial and will protect their hive from all intruders, including you. They lack yellow stripes, instead having a solid yellow midsection with a black dot in the center of the back and only nest in wood they have burrowed into. Both are pollinators helping your garden. If they are causing issues, get an exterminator.

If its a queen, it will hatch in about 15 days. Drones will hatch in about 20, and workers in about 25 days.

Of the species of bees that actually produce honey, not all do; it is produced as a means to store nectar (their source of sugar) for the winter, so it is part of their diet. Bees use a special organ called the "honey crop" to store this nectar while foraging and to process nectar into honey for storage. They also use honey to make wax. It takes about eight (8) pounds of honey to produce one (1) pound of wax! Bees will readily consume honey left out for them, so yes, they must like it.

This varies greatly by species and is not easily answered without knowing which species we are talking about. If we are talking about Apis Mellifera (honey bees) then they will live up to five (5) years in the wild. However, in a natural hive, the worker bees will kill her as soon as her laying productivity begins to diminish, so there are a lot of variables as to how long she will live. Genetics play a vital role. If she lays strong, her sisters, the workers will keep her around until she no longer does so. At this point, the workers will raise a new queen and eject the old queen from the hive or kill her by forming a ball around her, causing her to overheat and die.

Yes, but not often. She may leave the hive for her first mating, if there's a major disturbance, or if the hive has grown too large for her to maintain.

It's difficult to do in the wild since queens rarely leave the hive. You can order queens from apiaries or artificially introduce a queen from another hive to yours.

Calling an exterminator is your best bet, since you can become injured trying to take down a hive yourself.

If it doesn't bother you, you can leave it alone. If you don't want it there, call an exterminator to make sure it isn't part of a bigger problem.

One easy way is to look at their antennae. Male bees have long, curved antennae, while females have shorter antennae that bend at sharper angles.

If you have a beekeeping suit, you can usually just pick up the queen. Don't try to do this in the wild or without protective gear. The other bees may swarm you.

Capped brood cells are cells in the hive which have been covered with a thin wax membrane. This membrane will be flush with the surface of the comb if it contains worker brood, and slightly domed and puckered like a golf ball and it contains a drone brood. If you see a cell which has been drawn long (greater than 1/4 inch) then it is a queen cell and the hive is either preparing to swarm, or they are replacing a dead or unproductive queen. If they are located on the bottom of frames they are swarm cells. On the face of a frame, they are called "supersedure cells" and are used in emergencies such as to replace an old queen or if the beekeeper kills her.

Queen bees have stingers that let them sting over and over again without dying, unlike other bees. So queens killing other queens will sting them to death.

Those are the white and black striped. You will find them easily in the dark.

A queen bee mates with a drone bee who can fly the highest during mating flight. She only mates once.

Only one queen bee is needed for a hive to operate successfully, so there is no reason for more than one.