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Find out how to safely mark a queen bee in order that you understand how outdated she is and to extra simply establish her throughout periodic hive wellness checks.
My beehive journey continues following the requeening of my beehive and the premature retirement of her predecessor, Aurora.
It was time to mark the brand new queen, which I aptly named Scarlett. You can find out why beneath!
There are a few main advantages to taking the time to mark the queen of a bee colony, significantly for a brand new beekeeper like me nonetheless studying the ropes!
Marked Queens Are Simpler to Discover
First, marking the queen makes it a lot simpler to search out her throughout common beehive checks.
Once you take away a panel out of your beehive to test for wholesome ranges of nectar, pollen and larva, discovering the queen could be a problem with actually hundreds of bees transferring round!
Whereas the queen is bigger than the employee bees and drones, marking her with a tiny dot on the dorsal facet of her higher stomach makes it a a lot simpler course of!
Coloration Signifies Queen Bee’s Age
Secondly, in case you have a number of beehives (I intend to develop my colonies past simply the one I’ve now), you will need to mark the queens so you understand how outdated every one is.
Queen bees sometimes reside for about 2-3 years.
Thus, the colour of the queen’s marking makes it straightforward to determine how outdated she is and what the timeframe may be for her continued productiveness inside the bee colony.
Which Coloration to Use? Queen Bee Coloration Marking Information
For instance, this 12 months…2023…is a purple 12 months for queen bees. Therefore, the identify of my new queen…Scarlett!
Because of this queens born throughout this 12 months needs to be marked with a purple dot.
It is extremely necessary to ONLY use unhazardous paint specifically designed for bees for marking the queen.
By no means ever use nail polish or a sharpie which might be toxic to her.
Here’s a model of unhazardous bee pens to make use of that’s innocent to her and the hive.
Along with unhazardous queen marking pens, you will have a queen marking instrument to securely comprise her throughout the course of.
In abstract, the 12 months a queen bee is born determines what coloration she is marked with.
- White: Queens born in years that finish with 1 and 6 are marked with a white dot.
- Yellow: Queens born in years that finish with 2 and seven are marked with a yellow dot.
- Purple: Queens born in years that finish with 3 and eight are marked with a purple dot.
- Inexperienced: Queens born in years that finish with 4 and 9 are marked with a inexperienced dot.
- Blue: Queens born in years that finish in 0 and 5 are marked with a blue dot.
Find out how to Mark the Queen Bee
After getting your queen marking cage and unhazardous marking pens, you might be prepared to put a dot in your queen bee!
Under is a video of the three-step course of that Beekeeper John of Gem Apiaries, taught me for secure and easy marking of the queen in my beehive.
- Gently seize the queen from a beehive body within the queen marking instrument.
- Slowly scale back the quantity of area that the queen has to maneuver round.
- As soon as the queen is accessible by means of the openings on the highest of the marking instrument, use the suitable coloration of unhazardous bee pen to put a dot on her higher stomach (dorsal facet).
See the method unfold within the quick video beneath!
