How-To: Queen Marking
Sep 4th, 2007 by Robo
There are good reasons to have your queens marked, including:
- Ease in locating the queen during inspections.
- Confirm the hive hasn’t swarmed.
- Confirm the queen hasn’t been superseded. This can be very important in areas that have Africanized honeybees.
Unfortunately, many folks don’t have marked queens. Whether it not being an option when the purchased their queens, not wanting to pay the extra money to have it done, or they have raised their own queens.
For those that realize the benefit of having marked queens and would like to mark their queens, I have included a short demonstration video below.
Loading ...
Thanks Robo. You make that look easy.
It is relatively easy once you over come the anxiety of picking up the queen. What is nice about this method is you don’t have to worry about squeezing too hard like when you hold her by the body. Try it on a few drones first, you’ll get comfortable with it quickly.
Robo -
She won’t sting you when you do this? I’ve only read queens save stinging for killing other queens mostly.
Regards,
Scott
Scott,
I’ve never been stung by a queen nor know anyone who has. I have heard the same about queens stinging queens, but have never witnessed that either
Rob..
Hi Robo.
Thanks for providing this great video aid in marking queens. I have always been a bit nervous but am now a bit more assured. Will you provide some more management videos in the near future?:-)
Thanks again,
Vladimir (from Georgia)
Vladimir,
Glad you found the video useful and hopefully it gave you the confidence to try it yourself. I’m hoping to do some more videos on the use of the Cloake board for queen rearing. I’m open for suggestions if there is anything else you’d like to see.
Rob…