So, the queen bitch (David Bowie reference) is thwarting my attack strategy. What is the best method for disposing of the the queens? I've read that traps are a good method. I've tried it, but it seems like I hardly have any time to lay a trap before she's on top of me.

I put up Quen, then used two consecutive strong attacks and rolled away. Most of the time getting away unscathed is possible (given that you roll away after two and don't push it), but Quen gives you a nice cushion in case you screw up or get caught off-guard by its dash.

It's a bit tedious, but it should work :)

Lay the traps then before she appears.
My strategy afterwards was just patience and caution.

Get to her back. Leaving her stunned with Yrden or running away so that she turns around does the trick. She's really vulnerable to backstabs. There also an attack where she charges at you. She usually does this when you're a fair bit away from here. When she charges roll sideways, then attack her back.

Use the light attack only to get near her (back) quickly, then use the strong attack (silver sword of course).

Don't use potions. Swallow heals you, but slowly and the queen does high damage in a short time, so swallow wont help much. Use oils instead, insectoid oil for instance, or oils / whetstone to raise the damage output in general.

Occasionally go and slap it with your sword once or times, then roll away. Then stay a few game metres away from it until it tries to ram you, dodge it, catch it when it has your back towards you and use strong attacks on its backside for terrible, terrible damage. Sometimes the queen turns so slowly that you can keep rolling towards the backside so that you can keep hitting it until it dies.

If you want to fight head on, use Quen a lot, then run away to get your vigor back and repeat.

For traps scheming you need to put the traps down before destroying the cocoons.

This was what I used for the second one - I trapped the whole area between cocoons before destroying the last one.

For the first one, I didn't know what to expect so fought her almost without preparation (except that I used the bleeding oil). I got hit a few times, decided that it's suicide, started to run, found out that she won't leave the immediate area, and then it went like this:

Go a bit inside her area (she starts to move towards me), place an Yrden trap, go back two paces (this must be still inside her area), wait until she triggers the trap, then hit her a few times with strong blows and roll away. Wait for her to move away a bit, then rinse and repeat.

For me, Throwing Daggers made her almost trivial. Which probably means it is a cheese move, but it works. It still requires rolling and/or Aard. It goes a lot faster with a dozen daggers, though. They are like homing missiles that she can't deflect.

I put down 25 traps or so before I took her last baby lol. By the time, she reaches me , her health was half. It was on hard level lol

Queen on Hard:
1. Destroy two of the cocoons but leave the third intact
2. Lay down the 40+ snare traps you gathered from the area (in one spot)
3. Put a freezing trap on top to easily mark them
4. Destroy the last cocoon.
5. Quickly move to put the traps between you and her.
6. Enjoy the nice red mist that was the Endrega Queen.

If you want things more challenging, I've used Yrden to zarp her, and Axil if any of her helpers showed up. Hit her from behind as often as you can. Make sure to use hit-and-run tactics, as she hits hard. My favorite potion combo for fighting her would be Petri's Philter and Tawny Owl, so you can throw out powerful Signs and do it often. Arachnid Oil is nice, too.

I just did this on Hard using zero traps and potions. Keep Quen up as a safety (hopefully you have 3 Vigor bars at least, that's how much I had) and if you are facing the Queen, dodge diagonally right before she attacks. If timed right, you can evade every single one of her attacks.

You can do 1-2 heavy hits (more than one is not completely safe due to block) then dodge again. You can do 4 or maybe more heavy hits if you can back stab her after a charge. It can be quite unforgiving on Hard so make sure you keep a safe distance when you re-cast Quen and dodge right after, if need be.

What I did was use the potions rook, tawny owl and swallow (even though as someone mentioned above, she does too high damage for swallow to really be much help) and then used traps and yrden.

Use traps which freeze or bleed the target, and I used the arachnid oil (or whatever its called), but the oil which increases bleeding can also be effective. Lay the traps before she comes, and use yrden to stun her to either attack her or lay more traps. When she charges, dodge then smack her from behind with heavy

For some reason, I found aard to be quite effective against her.

Well, if you want a really easy way - Bombs. Lots and lots and lots of bombs. Like 20 - 25 of them (grapeshot is easy to craft if you're picking up everything in sight when you walk past plants, but there's other bombs you can craft as well). Just throw one at her (right after she appears), wait a half-second, then throw another one, wait a half-second, throw, rinse, repeat until she dies. Maybe lay a trap between you and her so she'll get caught if she runs to you.

I guess some people don't think to craft them and try them out, though, and so don't know how powerful they can be. And he did ask for the best method (which to me means the easiest method, although perhaps not the most economical).

All you need is the trap sign. Literally that's all you need, make sure you lay it down close to the cocoons, or else the queen will ignore the trap and be paralyzed but a second or two.