Finding Queens Descriptive Transcript

Summary: Paul Kelly, research and apiary manager, shows how to find queens in beehives.

00:07 - 00:27
[The video opens with close-up footage of a finger pointing to a queen bee in a hive surrounded by many other bees. The text ÒFinding QueensÓ fades in. The video transitions to a montage of seven shots showcasing honey bees and different elements of the research centre, ending with footage of a bee taking off from a yellow flower as the logo for the Honey Bee Research Centre fades in.]

00:30 - 01:05
[Cut to medium shot of Paul Kelly speaking in the apiary.]

Paul Kelly: Hi there. So in this video we are going to talk about finding queens. It can be a challenging thing to do. Many beekeepers dread having to look for the queen but it can be fun too, it's kind of like going fishing or hunting, there's the thrill of the chase, and so it is an activity I quite enjoy. There are lots of little tricks that you can use to help find the queen and you need to use all of them, and really the biggest thing is keeping your focus, not being distracted so that you are only trying to find the queen, not trying to do anything else.

01:06 - 01:33
[Camera pans down to show two closed hives in front of Paul.]

Paul: When you start to find the queen you apply a little bit of smoke, [Paul uses a bee smoker to puff smoke around the hives in front of him.] but you don't want to apply much smoke because that gets the bees running around, which makes it very difficult to find the queen. [Paul removes the lid of one of the hives.] The bees are running around she is running around and you want to try to find her [Camera zooms in on open hive. Paul removes inner cover.] where she normally would be laying eggs on a frame and in a normal position within the colony. So just a little bit of smoke there.

01:37 - 02:00
Paul: It's always easier to find queens in a smaller colony like this one, [Paul starts to pry one of the frames in the hive loose.] so if you want to practice at getting better at finding queens do so in the spring when the colonies aren't very strong and it is a little easier to find them. Ideally you have a nice sunny day like today when you are finding queens, it just makes it a lot easier to see the queen.

02:00 - 02:47
So we'll take the first frame out [Paul removes one frame from the hive. It is covered with bees. Camera remains zoomed in in on frame.] and what we are doing is we are looking at this side of the frame and we are scanning across the frame and around the edges and we are looking for the queen's abdomen. I usually recommend to people that they look at a picture of a queen and really focus on the difference between her and the worker bees, and it is her abdomen that is most noticeably
different, and that is what you are looking for is a queen abdomen as you are scanning across the frame. You don't look at every individual bee, you don't have to because she is enough different that that abdomen will kind of jump out at you.

02:47 - 03:18
Paul: So we scan across the frame, turn it to the other side, scan across that and then lean it out of the way as per usual. [Paul leans the frame up against the far corner of the hive.] And we won't look at this frame [Paul references the first frame in the hive.] because there's hardly any bees on there and not much chance she'll be there, so we'll just pry the next frame loose. [Paul pries the hiveÕs third frame loose and removes it from the hive.] Now as we are taking this frame out, we look at the following frame, the one that is in here [the hive] because very often we'll see the queen moving down the frame.

03:18 - 03:45
Paul: Queens always move away from the light, a mated queen will always move away from the light, so about fifty percent of the queens I find I will see them as they are moving down the next frame. Then we look at this side of the frame because it was in the dark, so the queen is more likely to be on this side than on this side. You'll see what I mean when I repeat that process on the next frame.

03:45 - 04:08
Paul: So again we are scanning across the frame across the frame looking at the edges. [Paul returns the frame to the hive.] If a queen happens to be near an edge on a frame she'll move around to the dark side of the frame and then you turn the frame over and she moves back to the dark side, so you easily miss the queen when she was near an edge. [Paul removes the next frame from the hive and examines it.]

04:09 - 04:36
Paul: So again we'll look at the next frame then we'll look at this side of the frame because it was in the dark position. So we are looking at this side of the frame scanning across. Now just very briefly I am going to change my focus I am going to look for eggs. I see lots of eggs, so I know for sure there will be a queen, now I forget all about eggs and just focus on looking for an abdomen.

04:38 - 05:05
Paul: This is a colony with a spotty brood pattern and we want to requeen this colony, so that is why we are trying to find the queen. So I don't see her there. [Paul returns the frame to the hive, then starts prying and removes the next frame from the hive.] Doesn't take too long especially if the hive isn't too strong. So you'd want to move along fairly briskly because if it takes you a long time then the queen can start wandering around and end up on the box or on the honey frames or so on.

05:07 - 05:50
Paul: So I am looking at that next frame. Now I am looking at this side of the frame scanning, doing the edges first and then the middle. Don't see her there. [Paul returns the frame to the hive and removes the next frame.] Keep moving through the hive methodically one frame at a time, and she'll show up eventually. Looking at the next frame. Don't see her. Looking at the dark side of this frame. Not there.

05:51 - 06:36
Paul: Brood pattern looks a little bit better here. Nope. Nope. If your eyes stop on a drone, that's good you are noticing something different. [Paul returns frame to the hive and removes the next frame.] So there's a number of frames that she could be on here lots of frames, oh I see her on the next frame. So we'll just quickly lean that frame over there [Paul places the frame over to the side so he can remove the next frame that the queen is on.] and pull this one up and there she is right there. [Camera zooms in on Paul pointing to the queen bee.] So you see we did find her on the frame not in our hands, but the one that was still in the box and you always try to get just a little bit ahead of the queen.

06:36 - 06:55
Paul: What I am going to show you now is how to cage the queen to keep her safe while you are doing hive manipulations. Some people prefer to leave the queen on the frame and handle the frame as we showed you in "Working with Bees" that video "Working with Bees." In this case we are going to actually pick up the queen and cage her.

06:55 - 07:26
Paul: So what we do is make sure our hands are nice and clean, not too sticky and then we approach the queen from the abdomen side. So we wait until she turns turns a bit and then we approach, get our fingers right down to the comb and then we can pick her up by very gently squeezing the thorax. [Camera zooms in on PaulÕs hand holding the queen.] Then we can just one hand that frame into position there where it will be nice and safe [Paul places the frame on the hive.] and we've got the queen in our hand.

07:29 - 08:07
Paul: Got a little honey on my fingers so I'll just remove that, and we've got her gently held between our thumb and forefinger. You then use a cage like this [Paul holds a cage - a white plastic tube with holes in it.] we just pop the lid open and there is a nice big space there to drop the queen into and we just drop her in, she goes to the bottom and we very quickly close that lid up before she comes up and could be pinched by that cap. If she happens to get in the way before you get the lid shut, just put your thumb over and then gradually work it down.

08:08 - 08:33
Paul: So that queen is nice and safe in that cage now. What we do then is just lean her on the top of the frames and carry on with our hive manipulations. [Paul lays the cage lengthwise on the frames. Camera zooms out to show Paul speaking.] If we were going to requeen this colony we would just pinch the queen and not bother caging her at all, but I wanted to demonstrate that caging process in this instance.

08:34 - 09:22
[Camera zooms in on open hive.]

Paul: So now we'll close the hive back up, we'll put the frame back where they came, this one came out next. You can see the brood is towards the front of this frame, so we'll put that down into place. Time for a little bit of smoke and move these frames over. Once we get all the frames back into position, we can then reintroduce the queen if that's what our purpose is here. [Paul picks up the cage and the camera zooms in on PaulÕs hand holding it.]

09:23 - 10:03
Paul: So we would take the queen out, [Paul opens the cage] by gently shaking her into our hand above the hive, we wouldn't do this on the ground because if she fell out she would end up on the grass and we'd have to pick her up there, so I've got her in my hand [Paul lowers his hand just above the hive.] and then I will release the queen back onto the frame and down she goes into the dark to be nice and safe. So that is how we reintroduce a queen once we have caged her. [Camera zooms out to show Paul speaking.] So we always keep a cage like this right on hand for when we're doing hive manipulations in order to be able to keep her safe while we're moving frames around.

10:03 - 10:26
Paul: So that is how to find a queen and about how to cage the queen, how to release the queen and it is a very useful skill to have when we are making splits or requeening colonies. Many different hive tasks require that we are able to find queens, so there is just a few tips on how to do that. Thanks for watching. See you next time.