Naming the queen

[jettabee]

I’m in second proper year of bee keeping now. And starting to think about how on the future I might want to trace the ancestry of my queens. When I only had 2 queens that was easy. But now I have had splits and splits of splits. I’ve moved queens into nucs. This means that queens and hives and the different colours of the hives ( I painted them) have become intermingled. I write it all down. But is there an official way of labelling the queens in the records? Is each hive record following the location or the brood box or the queen?

 

[E&MBees]

My notes follow the queen. I have a laminated card which lives on top of each crown board with the queens details, name and year on it. This moves with the queen and if destroyed, the card is then removed and cleaned. To keep track of family lines, related queens have names starting with the same letter. I only have 10 hives so that is possible, others I believe use a combination of letters and numbers which refer to year, apiary, breeder etc

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

give the queen a number, each brood box I have has a hook on it,get numbered tallies to hang on the hooks, when the queen moves, the tally moves with her, as do the notes.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I number my boxes and like Emyr the number moves with the queen.

 

[Cuckmere couple]

give the queen a number, each brood box I have has a hook on it,get numbered tallies to hang on the hooks, when the queen moves, the tally moves with her, as do the notes.

nice

i use a combination of age and lineage....so, i have strains of queens denoted by letters A, B, C, E and F....D was discontinued this year

so i have queens which are 2023A teh daughter of which will be 2024A etc

i record this on hive record sheet for each hive

 

[Swarm]

Each queen line has its own colour, date she was reared, apiary ID denotes where she was reared and then she has her own number.

 

[Peter Beacroft]

I’m in second proper year of bee keeping now. And starting to think about how on the future I might want to trace the ancestry of my queens. When I only had 2 queens that was easy. But now I have had splits and splits of splits. I’ve moved queens into nucs. This means that queens and hives and the different colours of the hives ( I painted them) have become intermingled. I write it all down. But is there an official way of labelling the queens in the records? Is each hive record following the location or the brood box or the queen?

Yes,
Queen Elizabeth the first
Quue n Elizabeth the second
You get the idea