Too much time on my hands

Vance G · November 06, 2014, 03:23:12 PM

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?

D Coates · November 06, 2014, 03:32:42 PM

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.

Eric Bosworth · November 06, 2014, 03:33:16 PM

You have way too much time on your hands. Have you tried glue on dots? maybe you could number them.

Eric Bosworth · November 06, 2014, 03:34:25 PM

Are you sure that they are your neighbors and not your own?

thewhiterhino · November 06, 2014, 03:38:53 PM

:lau:

Vance G · 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.

rookie2531 · November 06, 2014, 07:12:03 PM

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.

GSF · November 06, 2014, 09:25:27 PM

Paint a skull and cross bones on a couple of them :)

Steel Tiger · November 06, 2014, 09:45:16 PM

glue these on their backs. I know that it would freak ME out.

troyin17331 · November 07, 2014, 08:05:35 AM

hahaha

troyin17331 · November 07, 2014, 08:10:11 AM

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

Eric Bosworth · November 07, 2014, 08:52:55 AM

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.