Paint marking bees. What paint to use?

[KhunPhaen]

Hi all, I am a researcher planning a field trip to Thailand to study worker longevity in giant Asian honeybees (Apis dorsata). I am looking to paint-mark bees and am unsure as to which type of paint to use. In the past I have used POSCA paint pens to mark bees for short-term experiments, but I have read that enamel based paints such as Testors paint pens last longer. Has anyone had experience with either/both of these paint varieties? Have your paint marked queens remained visible for multiple years? I suspect these workers may live for 9 or more months so I would need to use a marking system that could reliably last that long.

I also plan to use queen tags to mark a subset of the newly emerged workers, I read on another forum that someone had obtained some opalith style bee tags that number up to 1000, does anyone know where I can obtain them? I am still waiting on approval to join the other beekeeping forum (months now, I don't think it is happening) so I thought I would ask here in the meantime.

Thanks for your help!
James.

 

[REDWOOD]

Car touch up paints can be used but most use posca pens as they dry faster. I find tippex correction ink lasts longer. Some colonies of bees will try and clean the paint off the queens as soon as you release her back into the hive. What ever paint you use make sure it is perfectly dry before releasing the bees otherwise the paint will transfer onto other bees.

 

[For want of a better word]

opalith style bee tags .............

Abelo

Queen Marking Kit 5 Years
Queen Marking Kit 5 Years

£21.00 inc. Vat

Used for marking queen bees to determine number and age.

14 in stock
Category: Queen Rearing

Description

Product Description

Small plastic dots numbered 1-100, coloured with the 5 International colours (white , yellow, red, green, blue), and glue. Flourescent colours for easy identification of the queen. PRODUCT CODE Q1003

only to 100.... but in5 colours... that will get you to 500!

Yeghes da

 

[B+.]

I also plan to use queen tags to mark a subset of the newly emerged workers, I read on another forum that someone had obtained some opalith style bee tags that number up to 1000, does anyone know where I can obtain them? .

PM sent.
I ordered some from Poland but only received the blue pentagons. The other colours never arrived.

 

[KhunPhaen]

Thanks for your response REDWOOD, interesting suggestion in regards to tippex, I have only ever used it for covering up spelling mistakes, so it doesn't simply crumble off after drying? I will definitely test it out on some of the lab bumblebees before my trip, cheers!

Icanhopit, cheers! Yeah I have used those tags before, I want to mark more than 500 bees though and over multiple colonies. I was originally thinking of adding paint marks to the opalith tags, but may chase up the supplier of the 1000 numbered tags that B+ pmed me about.