Queen Marking

Why mark your queens? There are a few reasons a beekeeper should keep his queens marked. The number one reason many novice beekeepers like to have their queens marked is that it makes the queens easier to find. More experienced beekeepers can usually find the queen with ease and do not need them marked to find them. The big reason to have marked queens is so you know how old the queen is. Many people like to requeen every year. Some people like to requeen every two years. It is known that young queens display higher levels of fecundity and produce more pheromone. Colonies with older queens are more likely to swarm due to the lack of queen pheromone. Young queens produce a pheromone that prohibits the worker bees from making queen cells. The older a queen becomes the less pheromone she produces. If you like catching swarms and losing your honey crop keep some old queens in your colonies.

Another reason for having marked queens is to ensure that you have the same queen that you put in your colony the last time you requeened. I don't know how many times I heard someone say they bought some Italians (for example) off of such and such queen breeder and that they were not worth having. My first question is usually, "Are your queens marked?" When they say, "No," I ask how they even know that the queens in their hives are the same ones they requeened with. The truth is they don't know. Recent studies have revealed that colonies that are requeened have high levels of supersedure and chances are that the queen in the colony that is getting trash talked probably is a totally different queen that has bred with who knows what kind of drones. This is a very good reason to keep your queens marked so that you know exactly what kind of bees you are keeping in your hives.

I've raised a few queens already this year and marked a few today. I decided to take a few pictures to demonstrate how this is done so you can keep your queens marked, if you want to. The queen pictured below is close to a month old.



When catching the queen it is extremely important not to grab her by the abdomen. The abdomen is full of eggs and is very fragile. The way to grab the queen is by the thorax. Remember that you can click on the pictures to enlarge them if you want to see the pictures in more detail.



A queen marking kit is relatively inexpensive and makes the job of marking the queen a cinch. I ordered my queen marking kit from Walter T Kelley Company. Here you can see that I am putting the queen into the tube.



Once the queen is in the tube the plunger is then inserted to enclose the queen within the tube.



The next step is to push the queen against the screen on the end of the tube. Once again this must be done very gently. Only enough force to hold the queen against the screen should be applied.



You see that the kit was used last year from the red paint. Green is the color for 2009. I use Testor's model paint. A toothpick works well. I like to use what is handiest though, and a piece of a twig is really handy thing here where I live. I apologize for the blurry picture but if you could see clearly I am using a twig to color the thorax of the queen.



After applying the paint, give the queen some space to within the tube. I usually set the marking kit on the end of a bee brush to allow her to dry before giving her back to the colony.





After a few minutes the paint is dry and the queen is ready to be returned to her colony.



The easiest way to let her into the colony is to jet let her walk out of the tube on her own. Letting her walk out on her own means there is one less chance of her being injured from a clumsy beekeeper handling her. Believe me, it is easy to injure a queen so be careful. Remember that you can click on the picture to enlarge it if you want to see the queen.



Hopefully this will encourage some of you to start marking your queens. If you order your own queens and have them shipped already marked you may think that you have nothing to worry about, but remember that when a colony swarms you will have a queen that needs to be marked. So let's just do yourself a favor and keep your queens marked so you know what kind of bees you have and how old your queens are.

Raising Queens Without Grafting

Have you ever wanted to raise your own queens? Even if you can't graft larvae or have the equipment to do it, you can raise own queens. This comes in handy early in the year when it is nearly impossible to order queens from the big queen suppliers. I'll let you in on the easiest way I know to raise queens. The picture below is of a split I made on March 30, 2009. This picture was taken on April 3, 2009.



When using this method to raise queens it is imperative to open the colony and cut out any capped queen cells four days later. That is why this picture was taken four days after I made the split, because I'm getting ready to cut out the capped cells. First off, you must carefully inspect each frame for cells. Just a few bees gathered around a cell can hide it from your view so look very carefully. If the one capped cell gets by you it will hatch out first and kill your better queens.

Why does one cut out capped cells after four days? Wouldn't it be better if it hatched out so I could have a queen that much sooner? NO! It is very important that the new queen be fed a rich diet of royal jelly after it hatches into a larva from an egg. In order to ensure that your queen is reared from a very young larva you must cut capped cells at four days after making a split.On the fourth day after the egg is laid it hatches into a larva. Once it has been decided by the workers to raise a queen from it, it takes eight days from egg before the queen cell is capped. Queens can be raised from larvae as old as seven days. The larva between five and six days old are the ones we wish to eliminate by cutting out the capped cells four days after making the split.

What's wrong with a queens that was raised from a larva that was between five and seven days old? There is enough wrong with them that I shall continue cutting out the capped cells at four days. People commonly requeen their old queens with fresh quality queens annually. Why would you want a less than quality queen. Queens raised from larvae that are too old can lay fertilized eggs. However they have lower ovarian weight, are smaller, are weaker, lay less eggs, produce less pheromone and are therefore more aggressive, lay patchy or shotty brood patterns, are superseded rather quickly, just to name a few. These make bad queens because they were not continually fed royal jelly from the time they hatched until the time they were capped. If she lays fewer eggs than a quality queen then your going to get less honey because you have less bees.

Though this method of raising queens may produce what is referred to as "emergency queens", it does not imply that they are inferior. When they become inferior is when they are raised from larvae that is too old. This will produce what is sometimes called a "semi-queen" or "intercaste". These type of queens come from the true "emergency" cells. That is why we must cut out all capped cells after four days from making the split or nuc.

Pictured below are some queen cells along the bottom of the frame. These cells are still open and can be left alone.



I only found two capped queen cells that needed to be cut out. As you can see these cells are rather small in size and would no doubt make some small inferior queens.



Here is a picture of three queen cells from another split I made on the same day as the the one pictured above.



If you would like to sit up a colony to raise some queens please refer to my previous post on making a split. After you make the split do not add a queen or queen cell. Four days later go in and cut out the capped cells. If you only want four queens and they are making twelve, cut out some of the smaller cells. I like to do this because it makes me feel as if the queen cells remaining will receive more royal jelly than they would otherwise and that they end up being slightly better than they would otherwise. But when I make queen cells like the one pictured below I doubt if I'm going to start second guessing myself.



Though raising queens through this method is easy, you lose the ability to decide how many queens are raised and can not ensure they eggs were laid on the same day. The queen cells are also sometimes easily damaged when handling. When you graft you can virtually eliminate these problems which makes it a desirable skill to have. But if you only need a few at a time this is by far the easiest way to let the bees raise a queen.