Are there any commercial beekeepers in the U.S. who clip their queens' wings?
 I don't know of anybody here in California who does it.  Maybe other parts
of the country do.
 
Based on responses, it looks like wing clipping is common in the UK, even
among commercial beekeepers.  And at least one commercial outfit in Australia
clips wings.  Is wing clipping common among commercial beekeepers in any
other countries?
 
I have always assumed that wing clipping is the sort of thing only hobbyists
do nowadays.  It just doesn't seem like it's worth the bother.  As swarm
prevention, it's pretty ineffectual.  Let's face it, if I haven't had time to
get to the hive by the time they're heading out the door, I'm *NOT* going to
have time to get to them in the day or two of grace that a clipped queen
seems to provide.  And once they've already tried to swarm once and lost the
old queen, I lose all sorts of brood-rearing time.
 
I would rather manage swarming BEFORE it gets started.  We try to re-queen
most of our colonies in the autumn.  Good young queens don't seem to swarm
much.  And we shake bees and make splits from our strong colonies in the
spring before the swarming instinct kicks in--this knocks 'em back a bit and
usually keeps 'em in the box instead of in the trees.  We still lose a few
swarms now and then, but it sounds to me like people who use clipped queens
still lose swarms too.
 
Shawna