Queen w/ chewed wings

[hscsusiq]

I marked my queens on the 18th and today (22nd) I found one of them had her wings gone. She's laying, but only a bit, and had been a very good brooding queen. The hive is a split I made in mid March with the old queen and was strong enough to split again. Those splits are doing well. This is a year old queen, russian. There were no queen cells, and only a few eggs and larvae. The bees were treating her nicely, but I didn't see her laying eggs while I watched, or measuring the empty cells.

[Michael Bush]

Pretty odd to find her with bad wings now. She certainly doesn't need them anymore, so I'd just check again in a week or so and see how she's doing. My bet is if she doesn't kick in, they will supercede her anyway, but you should probably make sure something changes.

[Dick Allen]

The wings on one of my queens that came through the winter look frayed, too. She seems to be doing ok, though. FWIW

[hscsusiq]

Update: The VA Apiarist came to check the hives... Said he'd seen it before and it wasn't unusual. She's layingand doing well.

[BjornBee]

Marking a queen, being in the hive too much, and adding stresses to the hive in other ways, can cause bees to "ball" a queen. If you marked her, there is a chance that you added some foriegn smell to her. This could cause a few bees to tug and pull on her legs and wings. It is not unusual to have a wing damaged in the act of balling.

If she was balled, this would also explain the limited or poor laying. Just give it some time. Wings mean little at this point. Just imagine she was clipped. Its leggs that limit full queen potential. Make sure she is walking and using all legs.