It's not surprising to me that most swarms will not have a marked
queen. When you consider most queen producers charge extra for marking,
most package bees include unmarked queens, superceedure queens, swarms
with virgin queens, the difficulty most novice beekeepers have finding
the queen let alone marking her, I'd be willing to bet there are far
fewer marked queens in hobbyists hives that you would think.
But again, this is drifting into the realm of speculation of how many
are actually marked and if lack of finding markings means anything.
Also, even if you know the swarm originated from a feral hive, where did
that hive originate? How many years/generations must the bees be free
from beekeepers management before they can truly be considered feral?
-Tim
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