Queen detection

thingiverse

In the case of a colony that leaves you wondering if there's even a queen, we take some larvae from a nearby hive and put them in cups. We position the cup holder between two busy frames and let it sit for 24 hours. The next day, if everything is spotless like new, it's almost a sure thing - that's because there's likely a virgin queen. But if she starts breeding, then it's probably an orphaned colony. In this situation, we either add some pheromones and back off for a month or reintroduce a colony-raising (CR) unit or a new queen.