The other day when I mailed on this I said about marking thousands of
bees to trace their return (and suggested black & yellow strains of
bees).
I have just seen a photograph of a good proportion of the 4000 bees that
are (were, I guess) being used to study swarming behaviour at Cornell
University. All 4000 individually paint marked and numbered. Very
pretty they all looked too. I gather they stuck the whole lot in the
refrigerator to numb them and the set about with pots of coloured paint
and numbered queen labels. I gather that as the bees warm up they get a
bit tetchy.
--
Gordon Scott [log in to unmask] 100332,3310 on CompuServe
Newsletter [log in to unmask] ditto
Beekeeper, Kendo Sandan, sometime sailor.
Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG22 5HP, UK
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
(So do wasps -- and they like fruit flies too!).