Marking queens does no harm and without this you have basically no
idea about the age of the queen. I have seen marked queens 3 years
old. Supersedure cannot be tracked without marking queens.

I keep a record card stapled on top of every hive on the inner cover.
The hole has to be covered or the bees will come up and eat the card.
It has places for various pieces of information including:
apiary, hive number, current year, queen type, queen source, date of
intro, marking color

Each time the hive is inspected I write:
date, number of queen cells, presence of eggs, larvae, pupae; queen
quality, amount of brood, strength of hive, number of supers, temper,
disease
-- and a few words on what was done, if anything

When testing for honey production, hive and supers are weighed before
and after.
When testing mite controls: ether rolls before and after. Sometimes
sticky boards are used.
Some manipulations, such as equalizing brood, can't be done while
experiments are underway.

I realize this is much more than most beekeepers do. This is what is
required for *real* evaluation.

--

Peter Borst <[log in to unmask]>