Did I blind my queen with the marker?

[tchu]

So as I was marking a donated oldish mated queen to introduce her into a 3 frame “nuc”, which is actually a 14x12 hive as I had run out of nucs, made up on the spot on a bid to save that queen, the marker pen spilled and not only did the paint cover her thorax but also her eyes and a bit of her wings! I was given that queen with no attendants. She looked a bit “lost” in the cage after the incident. I transferred her into a new yellow cage, pushed the slot open and covered it with wax & honey and introduced the cage into the 3 frame “nuc”. The initial intention was to leave that nuc queenless for at least an overnight before the introduction but an emergency came up and in the end all I could do was 1 hour of queenlessness before the introduction. I did watch for a couple of minutes and the bees didn’t seem nasty towards her, but maybe they were just interested in the spilled honey on the cage and it’s entrance.

I’m aware that the whole procedure sounds amateur in my second year of beekeeping and first year being on my own. But my question to you experienced beekeepers is the following: is that queen now blind and will this substantially affect her acceptance?

Background: as well as space for the queen to lay, the made up nuc also did have some eggs and tiny larvae in, as well as lots of capped brood and pollen. I did feed it a little as not much nectar at the moment in my area, but the entrance to the hive is currently small.

Thanks

 

[BugsInABox]

It doesn’t sound good. But suspect know way to know? I have heard of queens cleaning off their marks - so I suppose there’s hope. When are you planning to go in and have a look?

 

[Ian123]

You won’t be the first or last to have a pen flood on them, myself included. I now dab the back of my hand first to check!!

 

[JohnRB]

I recently had a pen 'blob' all over a queen - eyes, wings, body. Expecting the worst I was surprised when she was accepted back with no problems. We now call her the ghost queen and she is very easy to find

 

[Curly green finger's]

Over marked one of mine this season next inspection she was on top of the first brood box a lovely queen she was, they were at that stage on 18 frames of brood, so I made 4 nucs out of the top box and requeened the bottom straight away they had two supers on at that stage one which I extracted and put back on.
Now they are a single brood with three supers on something to be said about requeening straight away to keep the wax building for production.
I've another double superseding that's two in July, one single brood a Jon getty queen 21 and one of my 3 year olds.

 

[Erichalfbee]

You have bees on 18 14x12 frames?
Crikey and you requeened it?
And us that the Getty queen you got mid June that’s being replaced?

 

[Curly green finger's]

No double nats hive.

 

[tchu]

I recently had a pen 'blob' all over a queen - eyes, wings, body. Expecting the worst I was surprised when she was accepted back with no problems. We now call her the ghost queen and she is very easy to find

So did she manage to lay ok even though she was blind? Did the paint come off?

 

[enrico]

A stated you are not the first. Done it a couple of times and it made no difference to the queen's, they continued as normal. It's when you are mentoring and you do it to a new beekeepers only queen you need to be embarrassed!

 

[tchu]

It doesn’t sound good. But suspect know way to know? I have heard of queens cleaning off their marks - so I suppose there’s hope. When are you planning to go in and have a look?

Went in today to replace a green twig that was holding the cage with a skewer (all I had at the time was a soft thin twig) but didn’t see her properly as it had to be a very quick visit. Bees seemed ok with her. Will have a proper look hopefully on Thursday or Friday, when I will manually release her if the bees haven’t yet done so. But to be honest they really seemed to be wanting to take care of her, so perhaps I should’ve released her this morning if I had had the time. This is my first time Introducing a queen to a colony.

 

[JohnRB]

So did she manage to lay ok even though she was blind? Did the paint come off?

Yes, laying like a trooper. Now, 3 weeks later, some of the paint has come off, but for a while it was everywhere - didn't put her off lay at all

 

[tchu]

Yes, laying like a trooper. Now, 3 weeks later, some of the paint has come off, but for a while it was everywhere - didn't put her off lay at all

Thanks, John; that’s very comforting to know

 

[North End Bees]

So did she manage to lay ok even though she was blind? Did the paint come off?

What's to look at in a dark hive? The queen finds and measures cells to lay in with her legs.

 

[tchu]

Update: the queen disappeared and bees didn’t make any emergency queen cells, so I added another frame of young larvae/eggs and one of capped brood, moved the hive to the spot of a stronger colony to get the foragers as the nuc didn’t seem to have enough bees to tend the young brood. A beekeeper told me that, in the absence of nurse bees, foragers do tend brood and this beekeeper only uses foragers from strong colonies as bees for his nucs and it works a treat for him, so I decided to give it a go.