You'll recall I panicked not being able to locate the queen bee during my initial hive inspection. No such problem today! Ms. Thing was right where she should be: in the middle of the hive at the center of activity.
The apiary that sold me the bees marks their queens with a colored dot. The marking helps me to more easily pick out the queen in a vibrating mass of bees on a frame, but also it references her year of birth. I just have the one hive, but if I had several, I'd want to keep track of the age of my queen because as they get older, they begin to slow down the rate of egg laying, and it might be time to introduce a new queen to that colony. The colored dot system is supposed to be consistent among apiaries, so all yellow dot queens should be from 2017. Queens hatched in 2018 will be coded with a red dot. 2019 will be green.
