Searching for the Queen

One of the frustrating things about keeping bees is that you occasionally have to locate - and isolate - the queen. As I'm sure most of you know, only she can lay eggs and therefore must be kept away from the productive honey combs. During the Winter the nucleus of the hive all huddle together for protection, so in the Spring the queen has to located and separated with a 'queen excluder'. Of course, to do this you have to pick her out from the thousands of other, slightly smaller bees. Linda has had three attempts over the past few days, but hasn't managed to find her majesty yet!