In article <[log in to unmask]>, Vital Gaudreau <[log in to unmask]> writes >Interesting to note thaat JCB refers to marking more than one queen >consecutively ...you must wash your fingers with alcohol between picking >up queens. I have doubts that beekeepers carry alcohol and do do it in >reality...or maybe some do ?! This is probably one of these things, which abound in beekeeping, that can be statistically demonstrable as linked factors (marking/clipping and queen failure), yet at a practical level are insignificant, or only slightly so. In the two week period during which we mark and clip ALL our queens (right now) I can handle and mark and clip up to 200 queens in one day, and NEVER clean my fingers with alcohol. Actually, given our bees dislike of alcohol I can think of few ways more likely to get me stung on the tips of the fingers. I do not like being stung under the nail as it is 'a little uncomfortable' and can 'bring forth intemperate language'. (Sorry George, I know what you said in a previous post about queen clipping/marking. Have done it all ways and concluded that for management reasons in our system and environment it is ESSENTIAL if we are to cope. Thus I could not agree with your blanket condemnation of the practice. Unclipped especially is like sitting on a powderkeg with the swarming propensity of the black bee. Then again we are possibly NOT in disagreement, as we use it for delaying swarming until we are next there, rather than as an out and out prevention mechanism which it patently is not. You just get that key few days more.) We do not find that there is any appreciable increase in supercedure or other damage linked problems. Examinations cause far more trouble. We need to be able to find the queens quickly in high summer, and thus marking is essential for this and the speed repays handsomely the time spent finding them all in spring, plus clipping will delay the departure of the old queen swarm until at least there is a cell close to hatching, without clipping she can go as soon as the cells are elongating, even before sealing. Just buys us enough time to get round the colonies, and in addition, the old queen swarm does not go far without wings, usually found as a pudding on the ground or on a nearby weed. Easy to catch and hive, compared to 40 feet up a tree, or a mile away, or in another beekeepers bait hive, all of which will sometimes happen if she can fly. Back to the queen damage bit and causes for her to die/be superceded after clipping marking. I suppose a lot could be down to how you do it. If you grip her by any part of her body it must be a whole lot more risky than our method. I see the queen and wait for her (sometimes with encouragement) to be in a good position, and quickly pick her up by the wings between the forefinger and thumb of your good hand. You DO get used to this and quickly get the knack. Holding her thus, allow her to gently grip the tip of your other forefinger with her legs. When she is in the correct position catch at least the two large legs on one side of the body between that forefinger and the thumb. You now have the queen held securely in your less god hand, leaving the good hand free to do the important stuff. First we quickly clip her wings, one or both sides, it does not matter, but get at least one full pair, back to one third or less of their original length, but not right back to the thorax. In other words, leave a decent stump. Then give a quick spot of the proper colour (you do not need to do this, any highly visible colour will do, but we like to know how old she is) on the thorax (we use vehicle touch up paint, the kind with a little brush in the tube). Then just pop her back into the hive. No putting her in a match box for the paint to dry or any other niceties. Just do not use too much paint as a smeared queen with paint in about her wing roots will very likely get superceded. Before I let any new starter with us do this work we let them do it to drones for practice, and only once they get that right will they be let loose to mark queens. Until then they find the queen and call me or my brother over to mark it. The inexperienced will have one or two disasters before they are able to be assured in their work, but that is life. They need to learn and the time savings at year end far outweigh the effects of any damage they do. One further thing about supercedure. It is not a tragedy as once it has happened you have no further major management issues regarding swarming that season with that colony. I even heard of a beekeeper who actually goes round all his colonies in spring and pulls a leg or two off the old queen. She generally continues to lay whilst a successor is raised, and thus requeening is achieved relatively seamlessly. I've never tried it but it sounds plausible enough. In the end it is probably most important for the beginner to remember that nature is the great curer in queen related matters. It is actually quite a laborious task to render a fully functional colony hopelessly queenless, ie with no queen and no hope of raising one. So, barring failure of the new queen due to missmating or non mating and thus rolling up with a drone layer, nature will normally take its course and a new queen will result. Things like laying workers which crop up on this list from time to time are actually relatively unusual and we will only see them in a couple of cases (out of 1800) each season. One further important thing about queen marking. We NEVER mark the queen in the season of her birth. They are just too active and energetic at that time so risk of damage is greatly higher, and it is not required for management purposes as we do not examine the nest of colonies with current seasons queens (in our environment with short seasons it means that swarming is highly unlikely and certainly not frequent enough to merit looking). Thus, in our first spring round we mark all queens not previously marked with the previous years colour (we are using blue, the 2000 colour, this spring, and anything born this year will not be marked (white) till spring 2002. This has been a lot longer than I intended, but I hope it shows that there are different factors at play in different areas, and if you would prefer to clip and/or mark your queens there is no need to fear the consequences so long as you are not too rough. Hope you are all having a nice spring. Ours has just started after a long winter. Murray -- Murray McGregor