marking a queen

[LEAD PIPE]

How hard is it to do and what do you use? This is my fist year. I have never even seen a queen bee, still haven't. I think if I mark her it will help me keep better track of her.
I haven’t opened my hive yet to see if she was released but the bees are working hard so I hope she has. I'm going to open it for the first time on Monday and look for her. Is there a particular frame she likes to hang out on?
Thanks.

[Horns Pure Honey]

You can get a paint pen from a supplier and mark her on the thorax. Not hard at all. Certain color paints stand for different years, I cant remember what the color is this year

[thegolfpsycho]

If it is your only colony, I wouldn't get in a big hurry to mark her.  She will be in the center of the bee covered area, moving outwards as the broodnest expands.  Marking queens can be a bit tricky at first.  So I suggest you practice on a grundel of drones before you attempt it.

[LEAD PIPE]

A bee supplier? Can’t I just use something around the house or a toy store and a q-tip?

[thegolfpsycho]

you can use testors marking pens from the hobby store.  For years, I just used fingernail polish.  I never noticed any ill effects, but have read recently that it was not a recomended practice.  Seemed to work fine for me, but since reading it, I no longer use fingernail polish.

[Robo]

yup.  Testors (plastic models) paint pen,  works great. You can find them locally and a hell of a lot cheaper that the ones sold by the bee suppliers.

[Horns Pure Honey]

I have heard of fingernail polish being used but I didnt know if it had any affects. :)

[LEAD PIPE]

Okay I checked the hive again today. I found the queen, she has a nice egg pattern going, and I got a marking pen. When I marked her she moved forward a bit and some got on her wing :?
I read somewhere that this wont hurt her, will it?
Thanks

I had a much better time with the bees I used a lot less smoke and no fast moves. All was well.

[thegolfpsycho]

I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

[Apis629]

Certain color paints stand for different years, I cant remember what the color is this year

I thought that all years ending in five and nine were the color red.

[Beecharmer]

I was told this year's color is blue.

[thegolfpsycho]

With just a colony or two, it's probably more important to verify if there has been supercedure or swarm, than it is to adhere to a color code.  And while learning, help finding the queen is an asset.  Later, when the apiary expands, the outyards get started, the queens age will become more an issue.

[Apis629]

I'm probably wrong then.

[Michael Bush]

Get one for this year's color for the queens and one for next year's color to practice with on the drones.  That way you won't get them confused.  When you're good at the drones, THEN it's time to try a queen.

[Rich V]

I use white out to mark of of my queens. Didn't care if the color was right.  I have it noted in a log book. The correct color is blue.

[thegolfpsycho]

BLUE?????? I like bright red on all my girls... bahahahahahahahahahh

[leominsterbeeman]

When  You  Requeen Get the Best.

Remember the sentence above,  The keywords are there and start
with W, Y, R, G and B.

And those stand for White, Yellow, Red, Green and Blue and those are the orders for the years.  Years ending in 0 or 6 - White,  1 and 7 - Yellow, and so forth.....

[Agility Mom]

That is a clever and easy way to remember the years and colors. I seem to be dense in the math department though and couldn't follow your numbers. When I figure this out I get white - 0-5, yellow 1-6, red-2-7, green 3-8 and blue 4-9. Tell me where I am going wrong. I'd like to be able to remember the code.

[Jerrymac]

I think I said this somewhere before but here goes. I can see marking a queen to find her easily and to know if you have the original queen. But what difference does it make what color the mark is? I seem to read that most people replace the queen every year if not twice a year. And those that don't will replace the queen when they feel she is failing. Now if someone had many many hives and only replaced queens on a two, three, four year basis I could see the need for different colors to know how old the queen was.

But really, why all the fuss over what color for what year if you ain't gonna keep her more than a year and/or if you only have a few hives?

[Miss Chick-a-BEE]

The way I'm reading the number and color thing is this: (Please let me know if I'm wrong, cause I'd hate to teach anyone wrong.)

White (0) Yellow (1) Red (2) Green (3) Blue (4) White (5) Yellow (6) Red (7) Green (8) Blue (9)

So like Judy said..... it doesn't makes sense as you described it. But this way would.

White 0 and 5
Yellow 1 and 6
Red 2 and 7
Green 3 and 8
Blue 4 and 9

????

Beth