First Hive Inspection & Queen Marking

Here are some pictures from the first hive inspection of the new bee yard and also the marking of the queens.

First hive inspection
Find the queen! Isn’t she a beauty!
Marking the queen.
All marked and ready to go back into the hive.

We mark queens with colors based on the last digit of the year. Here’s the code:

  • Year ending in 0 or 5: Blue
  • Year ending in 1 or 6: White
  • Year ending in 2 or 7: Yellow
  • Year ending in 3 or 8: Red
  • Year ending in 4 or 9: Green

If you’d like to learn more about how to inspect a hive and mark the queen, check out our How To Video on inspection.