On the subject of queen marking, someone in the bee club in Victoria, British
Columbia showed me a handy way of marking queens which I have used success-
fully for years. First of all, buy small bottles of model aircraft paint
(it may still be called 'dope' in the U.K.), the stuff used for stretching and
colouring the fabric. Any good hobby shop stocks it. It comes in all five
required colours, dries in seconds and doesn't seem to smell bad to bees.
Pick light hues rather than dark ones; this makes it easier to see a marked
queen.
 
Prepare each bottle of paint as follows. Get a cork which fits tightly in
the neck of the bottle, make an approximately 1/16 inch (1.5 mm) diameter
hole through it with a drill or by other means, and push the cork into the
neck of the bottle until it is flush with the top. Take an aluminum nail
(they are used for some purpose in construction - about 1 1/2 in (4 cm) long,
a bit over 1/16 in diam, with a large flat head) and file off the point of
the nail i.e. so that the formerly sharp end is now flat, and push this
through the hole in the cork into the fluid. The cap should then be screwed
back on tightly.
 
Before looking for the queen to be marked, select the appropriate colour,
take off the cap, and ease the aluminum nail up a bit. When the queen is
found, pull out the nail. The cork will wipe any paint off the sides of the
nail, leaving a neat disk of paint which can be dabbed on the thorax.
It dries in seconds and the queen can be released.
 
This system is proof against most of the accidents that can happen in the
beeyard. Even if the bottle is knocked over when the nail is out, the
paint will not pass through the fine hole in the cork. A small bottle of
each colour prepared in this way will last most beekeepers a lifetime.
 
If you are a beginner learning to mark queens, practise on drones!
 
Falconer Henry       [log in to unmask]
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