Hello All,
I also prefer the una posca pen. I was marking queens today. I take the pen
and push down once to get the dot of paint on the end and lay on the pallet
of four hives I am working.

 I can catch a queen , mark her and release her in the time its taken to
type this sentence.
I mark queens to tell how old she is and if the original queen. In
production hives I mark every queen I see but do not go into a hive with the
purpose of marking the queen. I have seen paint removed from queens but do
not think bees replace queens simply because they are marked. I have seen
workers in OB hives follow the queen and keep picking at the paint dot but
only in newly marked queens and only seems to last for a day maybe.

I order marked queens at times from queen producers to see if supercedure is
a problem in the producers bees. On the other hand I have got commercial
friends which never mark a queen. Trying to judge a approx queens age by
looking can be done but not easy in my opinion.

I pick the queen up by thorax /wings and when she reaches out to grab the
thumb of my other hand pin three of her legs. Always be sure you pin three
legs so she does not pull a leg off. I then take the hand I originally
caught her with and pick up the precharged una posca pen and place a perfect
dot on her back.

I never use gloves when handling a queen.

The only thing I dislike about the una posca pen is that at times the paint
seems to leak from the end. I find a single una posca pen will mark a bunch
of
queens before running out on ink. I would guess 100-150.

I also like the fact that even a several year old una posca  pen will still
provide a dot if
needed. I remarked a red dot queen in a *test* hive the other day and the
ink
still worked. Part of the red former dot was till there but you had to look
closely.

I have tried many types of pens and paint but really like the una posca. My
friend Marla Spivak likes the testors paint in a bottle. She informed me (
with her famous smile) when I brought up the una posca pen while taking her
queen rearing class that while in her class I graft with a grafting tool and
mark queens with testors paint with a brush.

I highly recommend her queen rearing class and agree we all need to try
different methods and decide on the method which works best for you.

Bob


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