a Mike S snip... 
When marking queens the pens sold by most beekeeping supply houses and those found in the open markets produce colored dots that are colored but do NOT stand out as brilliantly visible in ordinary light.  

my comments..
I noticed the same problem although it seem some years color is less visible than others and for a while it appeared that a lot of the red marked queens got their little dot scrubbed off.... not certain why that happened but it did so with some frequency.

I buy brighter (but similar) colors at a local hobby store but basically in the pinch I will use anything I have... I tend to keep an extra 'pink' pen around since that color show up very nicely...

Gene in Central Texas....

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