Do queens keep growing?

[yes2matt]

I got out the green paint today. I remember what Robo taught at BeeFest 2018 how to paint the queens, and I got three, one I couldn't find.

My Qs are all physically small and scamper quickly. I'm not sure why; they were started in a box that was as loaded with bees as it could be, and they were on a flow, and had plenty of stores anyway. The Q-cells I thought were pretty big.

Two of these have been laying for three weeks, one has just started maybe Wednesday. 

Will they keep growing? If so, for how long?  Or did I somehow raise some mini-Qs?

[van from Arkansas]

Matt:  My Qs are all physically small and scamper quickly. 

Some queens are naturally what I call SHY.  They hide under bees and run a lot from frame to frame, hide under burr comb making finding difficult.  However I have veteran queens that casually stroll about the frames without a care in the world as I hold the frames and watch in amazement.  Some queens are shy almost appear frightened of light whereas some are calmed by light.  I have seen both.

Upon hatching queens can vary in size considerably.  I have seen queens hatch that were not much bigger than a worker, a cull to me and queens so big upon hatching one would think they were already bred.

I have some three year old queens that appear a bit smaller this year compared to their previous years.  Also I notice some of my 3 year old queens appear darker as they age.

So to your specific question of do queens grow bigger?????  After hatching, feeding a few days, and breeding MOST, not all, queens do get bigger compared to the Virgin she once was..  Queens do vary in size upon hatching, generally larger is better IMHO.

[Ben Framed]

Mr Van, do you color mark your queens?
Phillip

[TheHoneyPump]

Her abdomen grows and shrinks with the stage of lay she is in.

[BeeMaster2]

X2

Usually your virgin queen abdomens are much smaller. That is how you usually can tell if a queen is mated or not. Actually it how developed her ovaries are. Once she mates, her ovaries develop more and then they enlarge. I suspect this design enables her to fly stronger during her maiden flight.
When the bees are getting ready to swarm, they will put the queen on a diet and make her lose weight so that she can fly again.
Jim Altmiller

[van from Arkansas]

Mr Van, do you color mark your queens?
Phillip

Mr. Ben, Phil: I seldom mark a queen.  No need to as my breeder queens are Cordovan and as a hobbyist, I don?t run many hives, less than twenty.  Cordovan is simply an Italian bee with a gene or genes for light coloring, void of black.

The Cordovan genetic factors [genotype] are not defined at this point.  I have mapped as far north as Ohio and South to Florida.  If any Cordovan bees exists in Canada, I am unaware but this is not saying much, what do I know about 🇨🇦 except for some of the best syrup on the planet.

[Ben Framed]

Mr Van, do you color mark your queens?
Phillip

Mr. Ben, Phil: I seldom mark a queen.  No need to as my breeder queens are Cordovan and as a hobbyist, I don?t run many hives, less than twenty.  Cordovan is simply an Italian bee with a gene or genes for light coloring, void of black.

The Cordovan genetic factors [genotype] are not defined at this point.  I have mapped as far north as Ohio and South to Florida.  If any Cordovan bees exists in Canada, I am unaware but this is not saying much, what do I know about 🇨🇦 except for some of the best syrup on the planet.

I had trouble seeing my queens at first. I had a cutout queen in particular that was a runner and hider as you described in your first post. I decided to start marking after a hard time spotting her. The next time after marking, she was still hard to find, she ole girl was hiding on the inside wall of the bottom box. Had I not marked her, I might have missed seeing her once again. I have decided to mark all queens in the future not only for (finding) purposes, but for age identification, and swarmed away queens as well. In other words, if a queen happens to slip and swarm away and is superseded, I should know by recognizing the new as being an unmarked queen.  Now there is always the chance that all the paint could come off of a marked queen?

[Michael Bush]

As others have said, the queen not only can continue to grow, she can shrink depending on how much she is laying.