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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
Peter Borst <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 3 May 2007 10:24:49 -0400
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Mike wrote:

> Took a lot of ribbing about that from some of my bee buddies.  Anyway,
have come to the conclusion that I need to use a muff 

I think everybody has lost queens marking them in the field. I have had them
get out of my hand when I was trying to get them out of the queen cage;
oddly enough, they usually right back to exactly the spot where they
escaped. If you are fast you can recapture her!

I prefer to do it inside the closed cab of the truck. Then if she flies, she
goes to the windshield. Or, if you buy queens you can mark and clip them
before you leave home. 

A tip for getting the bees out of the cage: take a spare queen cage and
place it over the opening on the cage with bees. Half the bees will run into
the spare cage. You let them go and repeat until just the queen is is one of
the cages. 

Sometimes the queen will refuse to come out of a cage. You can slowly lower
the cage into a glass of water and she'll climb up and out. 

Clipping should be just a short nick off the tip. I have seen store-bought
queens with wings clipped down to the stump. This is wrong. 

Finally: if you raise queens you can hatch the cells in cages and mark them
before they get mated. (Don't clip the virgin queens!) I used to think this
wouldn't work, but I can assure you that it does. And this way, you know you
got the queen you wanted and not some stray.

pb

 

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