Have you ever caught a marked queen in a swarm?

[twb]

I have never caught a marked queen in a swarm even when it has supposedly come from my own hive with a supposedly marked queen.  I sometimes wonder if the queen gets so pushed and jostled by the bees prior to departure that the mark gets worn off?

[David McLeod]

I took one out of a wall this year.

[JP]

Never caught a swarm with a marked queen but did remove an established colony three years ago whereby the queen did go airborne to land on the corner of the building. She was a 2009 queen.

Here's a link to that post with pics.

http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,22990.0.html


...JP

[BjornBee]

I have never caught a marked queen in a swarm even when it has supposedly come from my own hive with a supposedly marked queen.  I sometimes wonder if the queen gets so pushed and jostled by the bees prior to departure that the mark gets worn off?

I have seen more and more "primary" swarms, be issued with a virgin queen, after the bees killed off the old queen just prior to swarming. I think that old thought of primary swarms always being led by the mated older queen, is not always correct. I see the old queen getting killed off prior to the first swarm being issued. This may explain why a swarm queen "lost" her mark.

[AllenF]

And I have had marked queens bought in years past that I could see as the paint dot was slowly rubbed off of a few of the queen until it was just barely there.  Way back.