We are having unseasonably warm weather and my neighborhood hobbyists and there are suddenly many, are not keeping their bees home. For some reason a garage with piles of wax and wet extracting supers is for some reason attractive on any flying day. This has lead me to indulge in a past time that may or may not cause problems. I have been catching and marking foragers. What year is green?
I can imagine the neighboring beekeepers looking into their hives and seeing marked bees. It's going to confuse the heck out of them. I know if would me.
You have way too much time on your hands. Have you tried glue on dots? maybe you could number them.
Are you sure that they are your neighbors and not your own?
:lau:
Not my bees but would not be a problem. I can tell a queen from a worker. I know several of them so I will find out the reactions.
Quote from: Vance G on November 06, 2014, 06:01:56 PM
Not my bees but would not be a problem. I can tell a queen from a worker. I know several of them so I will find out the reactions.
Did you already mark all of yours? My wife tells our friends that I have named all mine.
Paint a skull and cross bones on a couple of them :)
glue these (http://www.amazon.com/Watch-them-wiggle-Black-PIECES/dp/B0074MHV7W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415324605&sr=8-1&keywords=eyes) on their backs. I know that it would freak ME out.
hahaha
http://www.news.cornell.edu/sites/chronicle.cornell/files/SeeleyBees1.jpg (http://www.news.cornell.edu/sites/chronicle.cornell/files/SeeleyBees1.jpg)
there was also a study done where they had feeding stations set up and someone at each station marking the bees that came there to see where they were going
Quote from: Vance G on November 06, 2014, 06:01:56 PM
Not my bees but would not be a problem. I can tell a queen from a worker.
I can tell a queen from a worker as well but when looking for her majesty it is a lot easier to find her when she is the only one with a dot. On the flip side, if she is the only one without a dot that might work as well. I was so lucky when I combined my hives together for the winter. I took all the frames out of two hives and put them into 4X4 nucs with a divider board. I went back a while later and the queen from one of the hives was still in the old box. I can't believe I found her. I had just assumed that she would have been on a frame when I moved them. The seemed happy to see her when I got her back to her hive.