I found developing the skills of finding, marking and clipping queens, a key step in improving my beekeeping proficiency, from beginner up to BBKA General Husbandry standard.  This blog outlines the reasons for marking and clipping queens, as well as how to do it.

Spring is the best time of year for marking and clipping queens.  The early season colony has bonded over the winter and is less likely to reject a modified queen.  While the colony is still relatively small, she is a lot easier to find!

How did marking queens improve my beekeeping?

Marking the queen makes her easier to find!  That may sound obvious but removing the stress of finding her, when you have an important manipulation to do, helps you to think better and carry out the task more effectively.  It can save a lot of time too, especially during swarm control and queen rearing.

The less obvious change that I noticed in my beekeeping, was that I became less obsessive about seeing the queen during inspections, allowing me to focus on the other requirements of colony manipulation.  I found that the queen would just appear during most inspections and I developed the confidence that I would be able to find her, when I needed to.  As a result, my colony manipulation success rate improved.

How did clipping queens improve my beekeeping?

The reason I clip my queens is because I don’t want to lose bees!

The earliest that a colony will leave, with about half of the adult bees, will be when the first of the developing queens’ cells are capped.  This is typically nine days after the egg was laid.  The worker bees will start to feed larvae, they have decided to develop into queens, with “royal Jelly” within the first 48 hours, after they emerge from the egg.  This is typically day four after the egg was laid.  So if you inspect every seven days, it is quite possible that the colony can produce a new queen, cap her cell and swarm, before your next inspection.

Clipping does not stop the swarming process but it does stop your precious existing queen from going anywhere.  The next opportunity the colony has to swarm will be when the first of the developing queens emerge.  This is typically day sixteen after the egg was laid.  This means that even inspecting every nine days, there is a very good chance that you will be able to intervene before losing bees.

Here is Blue 10, making the “walk of shame” back to the hive after an unsuccessful swarm attempt by the colony.  Very undignified for such a great queen.  The photo shows the shadow of her hive.  The swarm was settled five metres away, waiting for her.  On this occasion I picked her up and put her on a frame in a nuc and took her to the waiting swarm, who quickly moved in.  I will often find a queen on the underside of the mesh floor, with the swarm.  When this happens the floor is shaken into a nuc box and relocated.

First, find the queen!

Just about any instructions regarding colony manipulation starts with the dreaded words, “first, find the queen”.  Ok, so how do you first learn to find the unmarked queen?

Finding the queen is a skill.  It comes from practice, a little technique and experience from handling, as well as observing bees.  Here are some tips that I found useful:-

• Focus on the frames that she is likely to be on, often the one with eggs.
• Always start looking at the side of the frame that was in the dark, before it was taken out of the hive.
• Have a search pattern, which starts by quickly looking around the edges.
• Look for the abdomen, which will be up to twice as long as the workers and will “stick out” past her wings.
• Her legs are longer, so she is taller and often walks over the top of the workers, try looking at an angle rather than straight down onto the frame.
• Her legs are often more yellow, than the worker’s.
• I find that I’m often drawn to the queen because she is moving differently to the workers.
• Don’t stress about finding the queen on every inspection but when you do see her, mark her! So always have you kit ready.

Is marking and clipping queens possible without picking her up?

It is possible to mark the queen, without picking her up.  When I started marking, I liked to use a crown of thorns cage.  The wooden one, with steel nails and thread mesh.  It looks a bit medieval, but I found that the thread has enough give in it, to hold the queen in position without damaging her.  I found I could not get the pen through the grid of the plastic ones and they have less give.

When it comes to clipping, the only practical way to do this is to learn how to pick her up.  If you are going to learn to pick her up to clip her, then you might as well mark her at the same time.

What technique do I use for marking and clipping queens?

I’m right handed, and the following process describes the process I try to follow.  Sorry, left handers but simply swap everything over.

Marking and clipping queens requires a high level of concentration.  Preparation is also important, so I make sure I have my marker pen and snips where I can easily reach and manipulate them, with one hand.

First, find the queen!  Then in one smooth, careful movement: –

Free up your right hand, by putting the frame against your body and holding it there with your left hand.

Keep your eyes fixed on her and use your index finger to guide her toward the centre of the frame and facing your left arm.

Using the thumb and index finger of the right hand, hold her very lightly across the thorax, to the comb.

As your thumb and finger came together you will find that you are holding the wings. Gently lift her up by the wings.

With the queen held by the wings in your right hand, use your left hand to put the frame, diagonally, into the gap that it came from, in the brood body.

With the left hand now free, offer the queen the tip of your left index finger, to cling onto. She will curl her body, as if she intends to sting you but don’t worry, she won’t.

Use your left thumb to hold the three legs on her left side, so she is held in place. You need a minimum of two legs to avoid her doing pirouettes and being damaged.

Take the top off your marking pen and do a test dab on the back of your hand, before then marking her on the centre of her thorax.

Put the pen down and pick up your snips. Carefully snip off the end third of one of her wings, making sure she has not managed to get one of her legs in the way.

Once marked and clipped, offer her the top bars of the brood body and release her legs.

Becoming proficient with this method will take some practice.  I practiced on a drone or two during every apiary visit for a season, until I was able to do it with confidence on queens.

Summary

In this blog I have tried to outline the reasons for marking and clipping queens, as well as how to do it.  It is a skill which takes effort to develop, requiring some patience and a lot of practice.  Try practicing on drones during routine apiary visits.

Spring is the best time of year for marking and clipping queens.  The early season colony has bonded over the winter and is less likely to reject a modified queen.  While the colony is still relatively small, she is also a lot easier to find!

I found that the standard of my beekeeping improved, once I was able to find, mark and clip queens.  More of the things that I tried worked, I lost fewer bees and my confidence handling bees improved.

If you have had two or three hives for two or three years and want to take your beekeeping to the next level, try marking and clipping queens.  I hope you get as much out of it as I have.

If you have found this interesting please subscribe to my blog and/or share on Facebook.

The post How marking and clipping queens has improved my beekeeping skills appeared first on NorthumbrIANbees.

It was 12 Degree C with some sunny spells, in my apiary this weekend.  It is still a little cool for a full brood comb inspection, but I was keen to do my first colony inspection of the season.  After the “the beast from the east” I wanted to see how my colonies had managed over the winter and to do as much spring cleaning as a I could.

It was great to see that all twelve colonies survived the winter.  They are all queen right, raising brood and strong.  The best news is that “Yellow 5”, my favourite queen has made it through the winter!  She was seen stomping around her brood nest, with brood at all stages and lots of bees, as well as stores and space to develop the colony.

What are my priorities for the first colony inspection of the season?

The two key things I wanted to achieve were to get the hives physically tidied up and to see the state of the bees.  The national bee unit best practice guideline No 6 – Spring Checks, gives some great advice on how to go about colony inspection at this time of year.

It took two and a half hours to go through twelve hives and perform the following tasks:-

• Clean Floors – A third of floors had no dead bees on them at all, these floors were “flashed over” with the blow torch. About a third had some dead bees, the bees were scraped into a bin bag and the floors were torched.  The remainder had quite a lot of dead bees. These bees were scraped into the bin bag and the floors were replaced with clean ones.  The old ones were taken away for “deep cleaning” and repainting.
• The entrance blocks were torched or replaced, and the entrance block was moved from the 25mm x 6mm hole side to the 75mm x 6mm hole side.
• The bubble wrap was removed.
• Any brace comb between the crown board and top of the frames was scraped and put into the wax bucket.
• Each colony was quickly inspected

What am I looking for during a colony inspection?

In his book Bess and Honey, Ted Hooper outlines the five questions to ask while you go through the hive.  The National Bee unit best practice guideline No 6 – Spring Checks, also gives a good list of things to look for.

I have a chant that I use to remember them.  “Mood, Brood, Food, Room, Doom, Boom”

Mood – Comes from the Queen.  What is their temperament?  Is she present? Are there eggs?  Are there any swarm preparations?  Is she marked and Clipped? – All of my queens were seen, and one needed to be marked. (“Green 3”, mother of “Yellow 5”, must have been superseded late in the season).  Two of my colonies were not as friendly as I’d like.  These colonies will be candidates for demotion.

Brood – Is there a nice brood pattern with brood at all stages? – All colonies had brood, but it was clear that there had been a break in laying in most colonies.  Many had capped brood and eggs/young larvae but little in between.

Food – Does the colony have enough stores of honey and pollen? – Two of the colonies were short on their own stores and were working the fondant.  The rest of them were still working through the capped stores in the brood body.

Room – Is there room for colony expansion and stores? – All colonies had room for expansion but I’m standing by to add the supers.

Doom – Is there any pest or disease? – It was too cold to start shaking all the bees off every frame to look for brood disease but I did quickly look at the bees and brood comb.  All but one looked good.  One of the colonies had a small amount of chalkbrood, which will make it another candidate for demotion.

Boom – Is thunder and lightening forecast? Is there a flood risk? Fallen trees or branches, spraying planned, new livestock nearby, or any other environmental factors which could affecting them?

Summary of the first colony inspection of the season

It was great to see that all twelve colonies survived the winter.  It is still a little cool for a full brood comb inspection, but I was keen to do my first colony inspection of the season.  I was able to replace or clean all of the floors, remove brace comb, clean and change entrances and carry out the first colony inspections of the year.

It was also great for my wife Karen to take some excellent photographs of it all!

When it warms up a bit more I will be looking to carry out a more detailed brood inspection, clip any queen that are not already (while the colonies are still small) and look to start raising new queens from Yellow 5!

If you have found this interesting or helpful, please subscribe to my blog, comment on the post, or like/share on Facebook. 

The post First Colony Inspection of the Season – “Yellow 5” made it through the winter! appeared first on NorthumbrIANbees.