[thegoldenroad]

I marked a queen the other day for the first time and did it free hand. I did get a little of the ink on one of her wings and although she seemed totally fine and saw her later on in the hive inspection walking around the frames in a deep box I'm just wondering if that should be okay. Just made me real nervous and concerned.

 

[KPeacock]

The first queen i ever maked has paint all over her thorax, head, neck, and one eye. the poor girl got WAY more paint on her than she should have. She happens to be my best layingqueen that alwasy has extra frmes of brood to donate to other hives. Heck, she kept laying through a ber attack with no interruption afterwards. I'm not sure that she'll be able tio fly properly, but so far there has been no evidence of intent to swarm, or superceed. I suspect your queen will be jsut fine. Now, if I mark, its just a small dot on the thorax and i don;t bother to even lift the queen off the frame. i just dab it while she goes about her business.

 

[philip.devos]

Now, if I mark, its just a small dot on the thorax and i don;t bother to even lift the queen off the frame. i just dab it while she goes about her business.

Do the workers try to clean her off? I purchased a queen muff and clip and have marked 4 queens this year, but I am interested in your technique. So long as the queen doesn't get "unmarked" by the workers, your method sounds more sensible, and less stressful to the queen than my way.

 

[burns375]

paint on the wings is no problem unless you plan on her flying soon. Even then its probably no problem unless its a thick large coat.