Tips for finding a queen

[Frosty27]

Yesterday I went to do my weekly inspections and discovered a sealed queen cell. Now I was convinced with the amount of bees in the box that they hadn't swarmed yet. So I hunted and I hunted for the queen. Back and forth through the hive multiple times before I eventually found her and got her into a nuc. I think I was at it for over an hour. I was wondering if anyone had any tips for finding a queen more easily bar marking her?

 

[pargyle]

Shake the bees off any frames that don't have brood in them and put them to one side is a spare box. Put the remaing frames face to face in pairs with space in between each pair and give them a few minutes - the queen will be in between one of the sets of pairs of frames.

Spotting her ?... well, that's another matter - you get used to seeing queens after a few years. The trick is not to look for her but to scan the whole face of the frame and look for her entourage there's usually a sort of erratic movement amongst all the rest of the bees on the face of the comb that you notice before you actually see the queen.

Tip ? ..Buy a crown of thorns and a pink marker and mark her when you find her !