I also have long advocated and practiced marking every queen. I raise my own and mark each in the mating nuc at around 21 days. When an unmarked queen shows up in a production colony she gets marked and noted in the shorthand diary that I keep on each colony. Looking at the colony and the diary I can usually tell if it is a supercedure, swarm replacement, or occasionally a second queen (daughter) co-existing with mom. Vary rarely it seems the paint has worn off but even then there is usually some trace. I use fast drying enamel (oil) model paint and apply it by holding the queen against the comb and touching the end of a piece of #12 copper wire that has been just touched in the paint. It leaves a nice perfect round heavy paint mark that I find will last a life time. It takes a few seconds and dose not require picking up and manipulating the queen, something that is difficult for me since a shop accident 10 years ago. I posted a few weeks ago that I often let queens that are out preforming go a second year and that those that make it to breeding status are never replaced and that I sometimes see 3 and very rarely 4 year olds. 

With good records I can say that overall 1 year queen survival is 70-75%. 2 year is 40-50%. Regarding BMPs I don't know anything that everyone else doesn't know. What I do is keep mites under control, make sure that they are very heavy in Oct. (I'm in eastern WA), check each at least every 2 weeks (April-Oct.) so as to catch problems early and try my best to keep stress as low as possible and just practice good animal husbandry. At 70 my colony count is down to 36. She who must be obeyed says I've reached mandatory retirement. This winter my loss was 3%, 1 of 36. I noted that the queen had K-wing at last check in Oct. 25 year average honey yield is about 100 pounds. All wintered at home and in summer yards of 8.

I applaud Pete"s interest in finding the BMPs on this list and hope more will share there practices. A good discussion will help us all.

Paul Hosticka
Dayton WA

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