Queen colour code..

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Do you mark your queens as per the official colour for the year?

  • I follow the offical system.

    Votes: 32 49.2%
  • I do what works for me best.

    Votes: 33 50.8%

  • Total voters
    65
  • Poll closed .

Poly Hive

Queen Bee
Joined
Dec 4, 2008
Messages
14,093
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Location
Scottish Borders
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
12 and 18 Nucs
How many stick to it?

I never have as I rapidly found some colours just do not work for me.

I normally use red or blue or white sometimes green. Yellow does not work for me at all.

On the basis my record card tells me the age, and the marking on her backs that up as I mark all my current queens the same what odds does an "official" colour make? None at all.

What do you do?

PH
 
I shall be getting my moneys worth out of my marking pen, and not replace it till its run out!

Hive records are a lot more accurate :)
 
PH the strict answer is 'Yes' I follow the colour scheme, because I haven't broken it yet. The actual answer is 'No'. I have only been marking for 2 years, this years 'Blue' has been useless, wears off in no time. So armed with this and the fact that I have a perfectly serviceable 'Yellow' I will use what I know to work in future and at minimal cost. Ultimately I mark to find a queen, if it's gone I know, so I also know its age from my hive records.
 
Small pot of luminous orange acrylic paint if I bother to mark at all. Only times I have marked is when I first started bee keeping and when I gave a colony away to a friend who was a novice.
 
A bit like Mike a. I'm part colour blind, so some colours are nigh on invisible to me, so a waste of time using those. Would mark with appropriate colour if I were trading queens or nucs.

Regards, RAB
 
I mark as per colour scheme, but use Orange for 'indeterminate age' i.e. from a swarm or somewhere when I cannot verify the age for myself.

I find marking a very helpful tool in me spotting the queen quicker and also to ensure it is the same queen and not a replacement.

It has recently been very useful with a swarm, I was praying that it was not one of my hives that had swarmed, on checking the queen in the swarm I was able to prove (to myself) that is was not mine (phew).

Work with what works best for you.
 
Do you think people get a bit neurotic about bee marking?

If the queen is laying well, I don't see much need.

If they swarm, I assume I now have a new queen, if I see new eggs/larva
 
I just use white as I am not buying all the right pens only to use them once every few years.
 
I would probably stick to the official rotation (well, I am a dead bureaucrat after all!). But I haven't seen any of my Queens at all this year - partly cause I do have difficulty finding them, and partly because I cannot see the need provided there are eggs and various stages of brood. It did cause a bit of a c*ck up in the Spring when I tried to do an AS and accidentally substituted a somewhat fey drone for the Queen. But isn't that what makes this sort of thing fun?
 
At the moment I follow the code. Being a new beek I pretty much tow the line in all matters, believe what I'm told (until someone else contradicts which is normally within 15 mins) and don't deviate unless I'm given good cause.

Don't imagine it will last.
 
At the moment I follow the code. Being a new beek I pretty much tow the line in all matters, believe what I'm told (until someone else contradicts which is normally within 15 mins) and don't deviate unless I'm given good cause.

Don't imagine it will last.

I now use (first year with bee's) white with a year colour drawing pin with white dot on front of hive.
Regards
TBRNoTB:driving:
 

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