As a swarm prevention strategy, clipping a queen's wing has problems.
A slight clip may not prevent flying, and even if flying is prevented,
the colony cam swarm within a day or two, with a virgin queen which
emerges after the old queen's departure is frustrated. The beekeeper is
then left with the remnants after the swarm has left, but with an old
queen instead of a young one, hardly an advantage. For these reasons and
because of the "disfigurement" of clipping, I had little good to say
about clipping, until last year.
I had about 80 colonies to monitor, to try to find differences including
tracheal mite resistance, between 9 different lines of bees. After all
the work of setting up colonies to control various variables, it was
essential to know that a colony continued to have the known, marked
queen of a specific line. Over the 2 years of the study, some queens
were replaced, or failed, or the colonies died over winter. Others
simply lost their marks (perhaps a difference in paint quality,
application technique, or bee behavior (very hygenic bees tend to remove
queen marks). By the time I noticed the marks dissappearing, there was
not enough time to find all the queens and replenish the marks. It would
have been valuable to have had the queens clipped, a permanent, though
not unique, identifier of the test stocks. I did manage to clip a few,
when I found them with a fragment of their mark still present, but I
didn't get them all.
It was annoying in the second year, to have several of the surviving
colonies, having queens with no mark, and not being able to use them
(or their information) because their pedigree could not be confirmed.
This was especially true for "significant" colonies (potential
breeders).
In future for such cases, I will clip (about 1/4 off either left or
right forewing, using good, small scissors).
But not for swarm control.
Kerry Clark, Apiculture Specialist
B.C. Ministry of Agriculture
1201 103 Ave
Dawson Creek B.C.
V1G 4J2 CANADA Tel (604) 784-2225 fax (604) 784-2299
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