Managing queens: adding, marking, replacing

On a colony’s page, you manage its queen independently of the colony itself — after all, a queen can be replaced while the colony continues to exist.

Queen overview

Tapping the queen area on a colony first opens an overview with all recorded data — variety, mating, breeding year, marking color, origin, and notes. If a colony has several active queens, you can switch between them using the arrows or the small number dots at the top. Edit takes you straight into the edit dialog for the currently shown queen.

Adding a new queen

Open the queen overview and select Edit, then New in the edit dialog. Choose the bee variety from the list you’ve configured under Settings, and optionally enter the breeding year, a name or ID, and the international queen marking color — the color that lets beekeepers worldwide recognize a queen’s breeding year at a glance.

Last seen

You can record when you last saw the queen. This helps you quickly judge, at your next inspection, whether a check is due.

Moving or parking a queen

In the edit dialog of an existing queen you’ll find the actions Move (assign the queen to a different colony) and Park (temporarily unassign the queen from any colony, while keeping all her data). You can later reassign a parked queen either from the edit dialog when adding a new queen, or — if the colony already has an active queen — via Get parked queen in the overview.

Replacing a queen

If a queen is replaced or has died, mark her accordingly as dead in the edit dialog. From that point on, the colony is considered queenless until you record a new queen.

Where to find this in the app

Open a colony and tap the queen area. From the overview, Edit takes you to editing, adding, moving, or parking the queen.