Queenright
Lexikon
A bee colony is considered queenright when it has a present, egg-laying queen.
A bee colony is considered queenright when it has a present, egg-laying queen. The term derives from the old word Weisel for the queen, and thus describes the normal, healthy basic state of a colony. The opposite is queenless, a colony without a functioning queen.
In practice, being queenright cannot always be established by sighting the queen herself, since she often hides in the crowd on the combs. More reliable is indirect proof via the brood: if eggs, young open larvae and an unbroken pattern of capped worker brood are found, one can assume that a queen is active in the colony and laying regularly. Calm behavior at the entrance and normal pollen intake also point to this.
Checking whether a colony is queenright is one of the most important routine tasks at the bee colony, especially after interventions such as forming a nucleus colony, requeening, or after the swarming season. A common mistake is prematurely considering a colony queenless merely because the queen has not been sighted, even though fresh eggs point to a present queen who has simply not been found yet.