Do you mark your queen?

[magnet-man]

Do you mark your queen when the hive raises her? Second question, how do you reintroduce her?

[odfrank]

I sometimes mark them when I come across them, I just run her back in. Those enamel paint pens work great.

[Michael Bush]

I always carry an enamel paint pen, a hair clip queen catcher and a marking tube. I mark any unmarked queen I see.

What do you mean by "reintroduce"? I catch her in a hair clip queen catcher and run her into a queen marking tube. Then I mark her, hold her for 10 seconds for the paint to dry, release the pressure on the plunger and wait another 10 seconds and then just let her run into the hive by holding over the gap between two frames. The bees are quite used to her already.




[This message has been edited by Michael Bush (edited September 06, 2004).]

[bjerm2]

If your putting the queen back into the same hive there is no need to reintroduce her. I clip and mark any 'new' queens I find in the hive. I use white out. It comes in various colors. I like using white since it shows up better. There are different colors for different years but I like white on my queens that I do not sell.
Dan

[Michael Bush]

I guess I like to know how old the queens are so I use the color for the year. That way I know if she's this year, last year or the year before.

[dtwilliamson]

I haven't marked my own queens yet. I can fairly easily spot my Italian queens (although I don't know if they are the originals or not). I started a 3rd hive with a purchased NWC queen that I had marked. Boy am I glad I did. It is much more difficult to see a dark queen. I think I'm gonna start marking all of mine but especially any black queens.

[John Russell]

I figured, " Why Bother? "

Untill brood was found in the honey supers up past the queen screen, and after an hour of searching in failing day light getting
my nethers stung to bits,

I figured " Next year....without fail..."

I consider myself to ba a reasonably smart individual, but I'm always wondering why
my learning curve is long and painfull.....

http://www.beesource.com/ubb/smile.gif

J.R.

[bjerm2]

A long learning curve make life interesting! http://www.beesource.com/ubb/biggrin.gif
Dan

[Michael Bush]

I never go searching for a queen just to mark her. I just always make sure I have the equipment on my person to do so. Whenever I find an unmarked queen, I mark her. If I don't find her or need to find her for some other reason, I don't bother.

[wayacoyote]

Careful when marking however. I was teaching my Papa how to mark a queen once, and my pen quit painting. Trying to split my attention between the balking pen and the queen I was holding, guess which one got smashed.... I should have been better prepared with a working pen, or have put her back on a frame... Hard lose for me, but I learned a lesson (as did Papa).

WayaCoyote

[Daisy]

I haven't. I don't expect I ever will...

[Michael Bush]

>I haven't. I don't expect I ever will...

Why? It makes life easier for you, doesn't make life any harder for her and gives you information you wouldn't otherwise have, like "is this the queen I left here or her daughter?" "Did they swarm or not?" "Did they supercede or not?" "How old is this queen?"

Also when you catch your own swarms you know if it's the old (mated) queen or a new (unmated) queen which is useful to know so you can use a queen "includer" when it makes sense to, and not when it will interfere with mating.

[cadetman]

Are there any Ultra Violet marking pens?? I have a 12V blacklight and wouldn't it make finding a queen "easy" if she glowed under black light. (sorry it this sounds ignorant, I am a neebie)

Bruce

[magnet-man]

I have thought about using ultra violet paint to mark for the same reason. It would be nice to see the queen jump out.

I have never seen any pens.

[Clayton]

I used to mark queens. I don't anymore except for queens i wish to breed from. I like testors brand modeling paint, the pens are my favorite with the little jars as a second if wally marts is out.

Clay

[DanO]

Has anyone looked at going Hi-Tech and marking queens with RFID tags? With such tagging you could wave a wand over the hive and instantly locate which super and possibly which frame the queen is on before opening the hive. The tags would be reasonably cheap (~50 cents) but the wand unfortunately is going to to cost a few thousand bucks.

[Michael Bush]

The ones for our horses only cost $300 or so. But the id's are the size of a grain of wheat. Not bad for a horse to haul around, but bit much for a queen. How small do they make them?

Snelgrove mentions using radium to mark the queen and then finding her with a geiger counter. http://www.beesource.com/ubb/smile.gif

[Dick Allen]

I spray painted a queen once when I was a fairly new beekeeper. I don't remember exactly how the queen was being held, but it wasn't quite right. Typewriter 'white-out' was used for paint. Just as I touched the dabber to the queen's thorax she flapped her wings and the white-out everywhere, spraying her addomen and wings. I let her go back ino the hive and worried she would die. Checking back a few days later, I was pleased to see she was alive and well with much of white out gone. There was, though still plenty left to make her very distinguishable among the other bees.

[ainsof]

DanO:

I've thought about the RFID route as well. MB is right on the money about the livestock chips.

The best price breaks occur, like anything else, when bought in volume. LARGE volume. Unfortunately, I can't think of any reason (exercise in patience?)to chip out 10k to 60k bees.

It may be possible to remove one from an existing product after purchase and reuse it. (The chips are NOT deactivated at the store as they claim)

A sensitive enough freq scanner should be able to determine what the range is. Maybe even a looksie at the U.S. Patent Office file or web search would be simpler.

Frankly, skip the commercial wand. They're already raking us over the coals as it is.

The transceiver is relatively old tech that any garage based electronics geek worth his/her salt can put together from off-the-shelf tidbits.

Can't claim to know even that much myself, but I have a couple of Elec. Engineering pals that could cook one up in their sleep.

[ July 06, 2006, 09:32 AM: Message edited by: ainsof ]

[tarheit]

I've been told the problem with RFID chips for marking queens is not so much the chip itself, but the size of the antenna. Even in the GHz range the wavelength (and hence the antenna) is much too big.

I'm looking for some glow in the dark model paint so I can mark the queen in my observation hive so I can watch her at night smile.gif

-Tim