Myblackhen, The bumblebees that you see in the spring are all 'queens' as they start a colony ASAP. Queen honeybees are only slightly bigger than the worker honeybees and you would hardly notice the difference at a glance. Queen honey bees rarely fly alone as they are usually accompanied by a swarm of up to 30,000 workers except during occasional mating flights when they will be accompanied by male bees (drones). Swarms in Britain usually ocurr during May June and July almost never earlier.