Queen in super

[NigelP]

Its not quite as simple as drawing an imaginary line across the UK. 30 miles from me on the Yorkshire Wolds (Highly agriculturalized) the bee season is over. Whereas around me, higher and hillier and a village full of flower growers it's still going on and will do for some time. The heather has just come out and we will see when it yields assuming we get some decent weather.
For me it's knowing what all the options are then applying some common sense to what goes on around your own local patch.

[Gerry]

"It seems likely that the newly mated queen made it into the supers before she became to big"

Unlikely as a queen excluder excludes the queen based on the width of her thorax which doesn't increase after emergence as far as I can find out. The increase in size of the abdomen as the ovaries swell after mating or after a period of not laying is irrelevant as it is quite flexible and could be squeezed through an excluder. Queens often get into supers because of faulty excluder and sometimes because beekeepers fail to check the excluder properly after taking it off and placing it on top of the supers. Also when beekeepers place the brood chamber on the roof while cleaning etc the floorboard she may fall into the roof and after the hive is reassembled walks from the roof through the "feedhole" in the crownboard into the super. In addition when turning a brood comb rather too vigorously the queen may drop or be spun off the comb and falls or flies into an open super from that hive placed closeby on an upturned roof .

[AndrewLD]

Its not quite as simple as drawing an imaginary line across the UK. .............................
For me it's knowing what all the options are then applying some common sense to what goes on around your own local patch.

Well actually, it could be that simple in the sense I meant it. There really is a difference in the environmental zones to the North and South of that divide and it involves a whole range of different factors that could well bear on beekeeping...
OR we'll just say that we are all in the North Atlantic maritime zone that is heading to be like the South and watch as people rush to set up outdoor pool franchises in the North of Scotland
But I understand your point - another beekeeper a mile and a half from me enjoyed a wonderful borage crop at the end of July when everything round me had dried up
But did you understand my point? There are optimal times to do things and times to do nothing? I just don't get the "going back into a war zone with the bees a second time" when what you are doing is neither the best time and you end up with aggressive bees.... But if some wish to wear their stings as battle scars I suppose it's up to them.

[AndrewLD]

"It seems likely that the newly mated queen made it into the supers before she became to big"

Unlikely as a queen excluder excludes the queen based on the width of her thorax which doesn't increase after emergence as far as I can find out. The increase in size of the abdomen as the ovaries swell after mating or after a period of not laying is irrelevant as it is quite flexible and could be squeezed through an excluder. Queens often get into supers because of faulty excluder and sometimes because beekeepers fail to check the excluder properly after taking it off and placing it on top of the supers. Also when beekeepers place the brood chamber on the roof while cleaning etc the floorboard she may fall into the roof and after the hive is reassembled walks from the roof through the "feedhole" in the crownboard into the super. In addition when turning a brood comb rather too vigorously the queen may drop or be spun off the comb and falls or flies into an open super from that hive placed closeby on an upturned roof .

I'll accept your point re thorax (I always thought it was the abdomen but clearly I am wrong) but the rest appears to be hypothesis;
Michael Bush says: Any queen can get through an excluder if she's motivated enough. Although I have seen the (odd one?) stuck in the excluder on one occasion. In theory it's their thorax that doesn't fit, as the abdomen is elastic enough. A virgin queens throrax is it's full size when she emerges.
I'll go with Michael on this, too many have seen queens in supers for the other explanations to be more likely reasons.

[NigelP]

But did you understand my point? There are optimal times to do things and times to do nothing? I just don't get the "going back into a war zone with the bees a second time" when what you are doing is neither the best time and you end up with aggressive bees.... But if some wish to wear their stings as battle scars I suppose it's up to them.

I do, I certainly don't inspect as frequently, but I will be inspecting to make sure all is well. I am also waiting on a couple of colonies to get laying queens, so will be inspecting both of them next week. One is the bees from hell (re-queening to something more docile....I hope) and the other was and still is as gentle as a lamb. With an Oz armour suit and nitrite gloves I rarely get many "battle scars" even from the bees from hell.
Sometime doing nothing is not the whole answer, there are always "depends on" circumstances.

[MickBBKA]

A few weeks ago I had a new mated queen go through the QE and laid up 3 supers of brood in about 10 days which is a right pain. My local black queens are often quite small and can go through a QE when they want to. They always settle down into a brood box or two eventually.

[AdamD]

A (late) suggestion if Bridget is thinking of uniting anyway, is, in the first instance to move the hive away away so the flyers go into another hive. It will then be easier to check for the queen in the remaining part as there will be less bees and it's the older flyers that tend to be the difficult ones. Once she is found and removed, the brood box can be placed on another hive with newspaper in between and united in the usual way. Obviously the above depends on the position of Bridget's hives being suitable.
Although supercedure queens are good-sized if the process works well, it's possible that the queen just might be a small one if something went wrong in the process and the 'real' supercedure queen isn't there and there's a scrub queen present instead.

[Steve 1972]

Scrub Queens are really difficult to find..i have had to deal with two scrub Queens in my time with the bees and both where the almost same size as a worker..the only thing that gave the game away was the long brown back legs..the Queen in this picture took me almost two hours to find and capture..it is hard to tell the exact size of the Queen in this picture as the workers abdomen has shrunk from being in the freezer but you will get the general idea.