The real problem facing beekeeping in 2014

[The Drone Ranger]

I'm starting an early search for a decent shade of green to mark next years queens
Something visible, light, possibly fluorescent, anything except the last one which was bleeding impossible to spot
I'm going to really miss red so badly
Yellow is fine when it comes around
White is no problem
But blooming green again it's getting me down already :)

[gavin]

Best not move across the water. Rumour has it that it is green every year there. I'll be off in a few weeks to check that out myself.

2013 should have been the year of green given the progress made by the NIHBS.

However, this 5-year colour scheme, isn't it just necessary for Amm beekeepers?!

[Jon]

Mark them the colour you can identify best and keep colony records for your queens.
Some of mine end up with two colours if I have to remark them after a year or two.

[gavin]

You'd never have guessed that DR was such a conformist, would you? Mine are usually white. Sometimes I do get organised part way through the season and do some in the 'right' colour but then I'll lose it and turn to white again. One of these days I'll actually start using the little numbered discs from BuzzyBee and then I'll be *really* organised.

[fatshark]

Being red-green colourblind doesn't help either ... :(
I use either white or blue. Oh yes, and metallic silver/gold for a queen in an observation hive. I'm unlikely to raise more than two parallel lines of queens in any year, so use the two colours to indicate provenance.
By the time you get round to using those numbered disks Gavin the glue will have gone off ... mine has, and superglue isn't a suitable replacement.

[masterbk]

When I used the numbers I found that some bees chewed them off the queens. To increase the chances of finding the queen I first put a spot of Humbrol paint on her thorax with end of matchstick and before the paint had chance to dry I applied the numbered disc ie using the paint as the glue. If her workers chewed off the disc I could still recognise the queen from the coloured spot underneath it. Some people apply the green paint and when dry apply a small white spot in the middle of it or vice versa.

[The Drone Ranger]

I think I will mix my own from the blue and the yellow bottle that should give me something to do during Winter

[Bumble]

If you don't want to spend all winter staring at two small bottles of paint, and want to stick to the approved colours you could try fluorescent green? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290615082200&var=590062717172

[drumgerry]

I'm much the same Gavin. I just use the pen I have that is working no matter the colour. Got a good supply of the little numbered discs which will be put to good use next year on anaesthetised II queens. On conscious queens I'd be worried where I put the glue. Saw a queen lately marked with tippex which had been spread down her wings. I think that person was lucky she hadn't been superceded

[drumgerry]

I think I will mix my own from the blue and the yellow bottle that should give me something to do during Winter

Or the red and the white for any gay customers eh DR?! That would give a whole new meaning to marking your queens lol!

[madasafish]

Day glow orange for me. Rely on my notes for the year...

[The Drone Ranger]

If you don't want to spend all winter staring at two small bottles of paint, and want to stick to the approved colours you could try fluorescent green? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290615082200&var=590062717172

There is a light green might give that a go or the fluorescent green
Drumgerry's pink sounds horrible plus it's not on the official list
If I wasn't so cack handed I might have resorted to the disks

I might try an alternative method using only white
First I might paint the right foreleg white
then next year the one behind it and so on
that should work with a big white spot on the thorax :)

[Neils]

I'm another that just uses the colour I have to hand for the bees themselves and my notes and the hive numbering to keep track of the queens.

All my queens are marked with red but the hive roof, which is numbered, follows the queen.

[prakel]

I can see the value of colour/numerical marking for queens raised in a very well defined breeding programme -where you need to be sure that the mated queen you take out of the mating box is the same animal that emerged from the cell -obviously this means marking the virgin before she's allowed freedom to wander around the comb (unless you've got an excluder on the door in which case it's enough to paint her before she flies) but for me it's enough, at present, just to cut a wing as a marker; as Manley wrote, they never regrow.

Does anyone know of research which proves that marked queens are easier to find? I imagine that it would be far too subjective between different operators to be conclusive either way...

[fatshark]

Does anyone know of research which proves that marked queens are easier to find? I imagine that it would be far too subjective between different operators to be conclusive either way...

I think you're right ... too subjective. But there is a clear difference ... more experienced beekeepers that actively rear queens - so are used to spotting nervous virgins (no jokes please) or finding (and removing) unmarked queens during re-queening of colonies - are often much better at it than those that do not. Practice makes perfect. It's a very useful skill. The look on a beginners face when you say - lifting the frame gently out - "She's on this one somewhere" and then being proved right is priceless.

Of course, if she's subsequently found on a frame of stores after two sweeps through the box you can also end up looking a right prat ;)

[prakel]

I think you're right ... too subjective. But there is a clear difference ... more experienced beekeepers that actively rear queens - so are used to spotting nervous virgins (no jokes please) or finding (and removing) unmarked queens during re-queening of colonies - are often much better at it than those that do not. (prakel's edit: PERFECT!!!!:))Practice makes perfect.

Definitely a colony 'hours' thing rather than duration of owning colonies. I question how truly useful the mark is in helping people find queens because we often read about how difficult some people find the practice of spotting queens whether they're marked or not, hence the multitude of queen finding tips and tricks which have been put forward over the years. I wonder whether it may be shape/movement more than a dot of paint which often catches the eye first, but people aren't realizing that because they then see the mark and just assume that that is what caught their attention in the first place.

[The Drone Ranger]

When I used the numbers I found that some bees chewed them off the queens. To increase the chances of finding the queen I first put a spot of Humbrol paint on her thorax with end of matchstick and before the paint had chance to dry I applied the numbered disc ie using the paint as the glue. If her workers chewed off the disc I could still recognise the queen from the coloured spot underneath it. Some people apply the green paint and when dry apply a small white spot in the middle of it or vice versa.

I think your plan masterbk where the white gets a second dot of green might be worth a go :)

Prakel might have something when he pointed out finding the queen is easier the more practice you get.
It might be a catch 22 though if you don't mark them your missing a chance to spot them in the first place
I have ended this year with 26 queens running around in hives perhaps some won't make it but I will be glad of the faint remnants of marking next spring

I can see the advantage of the clipping but although I don't give them names Melifera Crofter's Queen Spud I don't want to chop bits off them :)

[Jon]

but for me it's enough, at present, just to cut a wing as a marker; as Manley wrote, they never regrow...

I would tend to agree. If I could only do either marking or clipping, I would chose to clip.
One problem with marked queens is that if you are focused on looking for a marked queen you will likely fail to see an unmarked one.
The skill in finding queens is not so much putting a big mark on them, as understanding where they are likely to be by reading the colony.
A frame with emerging brood is a good bet. So is a frame with a high density of bees. Pollen frames or frames of stores - very unlikely.
There are usually only 3 or 4 likely frames out of the 11 so you need to concentrate on those.


I wonder whether it may be shape/movement more than a dot of paint which often catches the eye
That's the trick. The people who are looking for 'a big bee' are much less successful especially if the colony is full of drones.

[prakel]

Prakel might have something when he pointed out finding the queen is easier the more practice you get.

...that was fatshark actually! Although I am in total agreement with him.

It might be a catch 22 though if you don't mark them your missing a chance to spot them in the first place
I have ended this year with 26 queens running around in hives perhaps some won't make it but I will be glad of the faint remnants of marking next spring

I'm really not sure that marking (general production queens) does anything other than retard the development of (a beekeeper's) other senses -if a queen is marked are you (that's a general 'you' not 'YOU' DR!) developing queen observation skills or looking for the mark? All speculative on my part of course.

[The Drone Ranger]

Gail, my new beekeeper who I gave bees to this year spotted the queen right away
We were checking the bees about half an hour after I took them out of the back of the car
She had a red dot on her ,was quite large and light coloured

Can't remember what the queen was like though

[The Drone Ranger]

when things are going well I have even spotted an unmarked queen in a big swarm , caught her popped her in the box and watched the rest of the bees follow

On another occasion I spent more than half an hour going through a paynes nuc about 6 times didn't find the marked queen ,looked around, and she was walking about on the lid with some pals

The list of marking disasters could fill a book, so I must still be doing it because I like the process, maybe I form a connection with the queen at the time of marking.
Possible as Gavin says I am a conformist at heart

queen marking might make an amusing thread

[prakel]

The list of marking disasters could fill a book, so I must still be doing it because I like the process

That's a pretty good reason.

[Trog]

We don't mark our queens but generally have no trouble finding them. On the few occasions when we need to find a queen and she's proving hard to see, we resort to one or other trick to reduce the numbers of bees and likely places she could be. I agree it's movement, and generally preferred location, that makes it easier to spot the queen. Also far better to teach beginners to find unmarked queens as they'll need to be able to do so, if only to mark their own replacements should they wish to go down that line.

[marion.orca]

Even easier than all the sticky discs etc, is to buy a box of drawing pins - the type with the coloured tops [ not the push pins - just the standard coloured drawing pins ] - I push the appropriate queen colour to the outside of the hive, then I can see at a glance which year the queen is in the hive - without even opening it - I stick to marking the queen herself with white, as it is so much easier to spot.

[Trog]

Before reading the whole of your post, I wondered briefly if the suggestion was to stick coloured drawing pins in her maj ;)

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi marion-orca
I thought the same, then maybe make coloured discs from the drawing pins,
the explanation came at the end
shortest suspense mystery I've ever read :)

[Jon]

Easy to find but lays 1000 eggs in a single cell.

[The Drone Ranger]

when I stabbed a queen to death with the crown of thornes early this year I stopped using it
That hive struggled even after they raised a queen cell the new queen didn't get back after mating
They were requeened after that and are now are Ok but you almost felt they were giving up for a while

[Trog]

when I stabbed a queen to death with the crown of thornes

Freudian typo if ever I saw one :D

[Jon]

Are you suggesting he purchased it from a different supplier?

[The Drone Ranger]

Never noticed that but I did buy it from Thornes :)
It is the nice type with thread crisscrossing not the hopeless molded plastic
How does anybody use those things.

I bought some cheap queen introduction cages molded in China
The lids would rather jump out than slide, the advert pic showed a nicot one
That from a supplier who is Eco friendly ??
Grizzly pointed out elsewhere that there is some horrible junk being sold these days

[masterbk]

I mark my queens and find it useful in reducing the time I need to open up the colony and find her to less than a minute (for swarm control, queen replacement etc) Marking the queen makes it far less likely that a beekeeper crushes her during manipulation or spins her off turning the comb. In addition when you find an unmarked queen in a hive it flags up that the queen has been replaced and also identifies which queen is which when they supersede and you find both queens present.

Some of the beekeepers I meet that claim they don't want /need to mark queens are often those who would not like to freely admit to being a little afraid to mark them or expose the fact they don't feel competent to do it. When put to the test (eg general husbandry assessment ) they are also fairly poor at finding their unmarked queens.

[Jon]

Some of the beekeepers I meet that claim they don't want /need to mark queens are often those who would not like to freely admit to being a little afraid to mark them or expose the fact they don't feel competent to do it.

It is even rarer to find a beekeeper who knows how to clip queens but has decided not to.

[Mellifera Crofter]

Yesterday I moved a colony from a wooden hive to a poly hive. As it was quite cool I worked quickly, hardly looking at the combs - but the queen was marked and I just spotted the little dog of yellow as I moved a comb across.

[Mellifera Crofter]

Sorry - smart phone again. It went before I meant to send it. I did not see a little yellow dog!

The point of the story is that I then knew all is still well, and I wouldn't have known that if she wasn't marked.

Kitta

[Trog]

Some of the beekeepers I meet that claim they don't want /need to mark queens are often those who would not like to freely admit to being a little afraid to mark them or expose the fact they don't feel competent to do it. When put to the test (eg general husbandry assessment ) they are also fairly poor at finding their unmarked queens.

Not guilty, m'lud :)

[gavin]

I did not see a little yellow dog!

Mallards, large ants, little yellow dogs, its been quite a year inside Scottish beehives.

[The Drone Ranger]

It is even rarer to find a beekeeper who knows how to clip queens but has decided not to.

Very easy job but unnecessary and cruel
I don't wing clip the chickens either just use a higher fence :)
every yellow dog has his(her)day

[gavin]

Why is it cruel? Any more or less cruel than placing a dod of paint on her thorax?

[mbc]

Why is it cruel? Any more or less cruel than placing a dod of paint on her thorax?

For the first time this year I clipped all my overwintered queens in the Spring.
IMHO There is an element of cruelty involved in thwarting the natural swarming process, the bees can be hopelessly devoted to a doomed swarm and her crippled queen and end up as a drowned cowpat of bees rotting on the ground after the first heavy rain sees them off. Obviously this is the most sub optimal scenario and most times clipping actively helps the beekeeper to avoid losing swarms without impinging on the colony health, but there are pros and cons to consider.

[gavin]

However .... usually few bees will stay with a lost queen, and if many do you maybe be able to recover what would otherwise have been a lost swarm. There is also the consideration that swarms take a lot of bees and may end up being destroyed on the orders of the new host if they've gone somewhere inconvenient ... or they may simply die out overwinter (60ft up a Lawsons cypress or otherwise!).

So from the point of view of:
a. keeping most of your bees
b. avoiding upsetting neighbours

... it makes good sense to remove that piece of dry, dead tissue.

[The Drone Ranger]

Why is it cruel? Any more or less cruel than placing a dod of paint on her thorax?
Well she can fly off with a swarm and a bit of water based paint
If she comes out with a swarm and one wing that's game over

[Jon]

Very easy job but unnecessary and cruel

My 4 year old queen which was superseded this summer, I clipped a wing when she was 2 months old and it didn't do her a drop of harm.
her own family members did for her in the end.