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The Joys of Having Queens Marked.

2K views 12 replies 10 participants last post by  Roland 
#1 ·
Probably the first time ever that I have had every queen marked. Especially time saving if you have the dark queens. I had one last queen I wanted to replace and she seemed expert at hiding. I finally shook the whole colony thru an excluder to find the dark lady. If you cant hand catch them then it sure helps to have the queen catcher in your pocket. Even after spotting them on a frame I have lost track of them while getting the clip and marker. Once while carrying the frame back to the tool box I lost a queen on the ground; pure dumb luck I spotted her in a bunch of bees. Have also had them bail and jump back down onto the top of the frames.

Take the trouble to find oil base markers; the acryllic or water base dots dont last very long comparatively. Sharpie is one maker that has them. If you cannot find a fine or medium point the round felt tip can be shaved to a point. Hobby or art supply stores. Beekeeping suppliers now all seem to have the new "environmentally friendly" acrylic ones. If you doubt this dot your thumb nail with both source dots and see which ones fall off and which ones grow out!
 
#5 ·
I got into the habit of marking queens when I first started alcohol washes. I had a fear of washing my queen so I was always obsessive about finding her first and isolating her before I took the sample. Mite monitoring 30 to 40 colonies took forever without marked queens.

But that practice has spoiled me. I basically don't open a hive without a marker in my pocket. If I see an unmarked queen, it gets marked right then. In addition to mite washes, it makes spring splits much easier. Unfortunately, I don't seem to keep queens long enough for the acrylic paint to wear off. I probably only have 3 or 4 blue dot queens left and I expect they will all be gone by next spring.
 
#7 ·
Probably the first time ever that I have had every queen marked. Especially time saving if you have the dark queens.
Good on you for getting all of them. I've let a couple get away from me. Like having a small swarm with an unmarked queen, place her in a mating nuc and she's laying in 4-5 days (obviously mated prior to swarming). But as a general rule I want every single queen marked. I even mark virgins in the incubator if I go that route. People say you lose a few to dragonflies if they are marked, but so far I'm willing to risk it as dark queens are in perfect camo against a background of bees.
I basically don't open a hive without a marker in my pocket.
Yep. On my way out to the bees I grab a roller cage, medium-sized posca pen (not the big one), sharpie, light veil, and mini-hive tool. Probably takes <2min if I'm doing light work without smoke.
Time saving aspect alone makes it a worthwhile effort.
I'm shaking some nurse bees fairly frequently, and there's no way I would have time to go through every frame. I look over the frame, flip, flip again, then shake, and reinstall all within about a minute. I have missed/moved a few queens by mistake, but without marks I couldn't have done what I've done this year. The time just wasn't there.
 
#8 ·
Having marked queens is awesome. I use Testor's model paint and a grass stem. They sometimes polish it off, but that's pretty uncommon. It does save time in a lot of different ways. It's also a nice parlor trick if you've got a guest in the apiary while you're going through mating nucs. Just pluck the newly laying queen off the comb and paint a dot on her.

I've often thought about marking virgins, but never have. I don't use virgins very often and am usually dropping them into situations where if there's a queen there in three weeks, it was that virgin (laying worker or otherwise queenless colony). It would be interesting to know if marked virgins return from mating flights significantly less than unmarked ones just from a 'science' standpoint. I take an unmarked queen in one of my colonies as an "off" condition so I use that kind of as a trigger for me to try to understand what happened if I can.
 
#9 ·
Same here as JW, but I did find that some of my white was pretty thick and my dots were huge and messy. had to break down and use a new bottle. Could not figure out why all my blue drones were perfect and my white queens were crap.
I thought Crazy roland marked all his queens and clipped one wing. Maybe I am thinking of somebody else?
 
#11 ·
I am not an expert at marking so I like to do about 10 drones for practice before grabbing her majesty. If I mark them with the same color it is confusing since I end up with a bunch of painted bees in the hive. Practice, practice and then practice then screw it up (buck fever).
 
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