Laurence Edwards shows how to spot a newly mated queen on a hive frame. She has distinctive stripes, lays a high-quality brood pattern, and will help the colony expand rapidly. Queens often try to escape the frame but are easy to see when they do.
See if you can spot our newly mated queen. There she is in the middle, completely oblivious to us. Lovely stripy pattern, laying really good quality brood. I love going in checking for new queens. They always try and leg it off the frame, but we get a little bit of a picture of them. There she goes. This is the brood that she's created here. Really good quality laying pattern. Lovely looking brood. This colony is going to boom now that they've got a mated queen.
