Hi, I intend to clip my queens this year. As i wear gloves when inpecting my hive I will need to remove her temporarily while i clip her wings. It should only take me a few minutes but are there any precautions I should take before putting her back in the hive? or would I need to treat it like an introduction because she was removed from the hive for a short while?
Anyone had any bad experiences?
Thanks
I see no reason to clip. Why? What's the objective?
The only precaution I would take would be to order a new queen first. Many times they will kill a queen with a bad wing, missing leg, ETC.
Repeat of above, why clip her. It will NOT prevent swarming.
You certainly wouldn't want to be handling her majesty wearing gloves anyway!
Scott
Allows ten day inspection schedule. Buys you time if they do swarm - you might lose the queen in the grass but the swarm will return to hive and await the first virgin to hatch, but I'm sure you knew that already!
I know theres plenty of debate about wing clipping, some think its a good idea others dont, but my question was about whether removing the queen from the hive area for a few minutes might cause problems when putting her back as opposed to carring out the clipping at the hive and popping her straight back.
Good point about having a reserve queen just in case.
If your question is about her Majestie's absence from the hive ONLY then I would say that it does not matter. She does have to leave the hive to go out on her MATING FLIGHT at some point and when she returns she is accepted?! Last year I took out a queen to have her MARKED and she was accepted back.
I wouldn't clip her. Most of the time the objective is to keep her from swarming.
But I have read reports where the clipped queen tried to fly with the swarm and ended up on the ground, crawling across the yard with the swarm following her on the ground!
Crawling across the ground is far better than 30 yards up a tree which normally happens to me!
Take the queen's boath wings between your fingers.
Put another sides legs between your another hands fingers. Cont let the queen twist its legs.
Then carebully take one wing between scissor and take from tip 1/3 away.
(http://www.beecare.com/images/Bees/Clip-Queen.jpg)