To Clip the Queen or Not?

[mbc]

MBC you are entitled to your opinion but it is not one I share. My experience is obviously different to yours.

However I am entitled to my opinion and what I said is in my view not arrogant at all.

PH

Quite right PH, I normally enjoy your posts and it was merely the assertion in the above post I found arrogant, not your good self !
I think sharing experiences is what the forum is all about and if those experiences happen to lead to different conclusions, then so be it

 

[susbees]

Further thought (as I dog walked) if you do not go even as far as marking your queens how can supercedure strains be identified?

PH

They can't. Which is one reason to mark. Because in reducing swarmy genes by selection you obviously have to know which Q you're looking at, what her record is for QCs, and how long in the tooth she is (hard to see any other way...lol).

The other problem of course being that telling people to requeen annually to avoid swarming rather than to select for superseduree strains shoots them in the foot rather as you'll never know the true supersedure strains because they'll never get that far.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

Stewart,
I clip and mark, after they are a few weeks old or when they are leaving a mini-nuc for example. I haven't damaged one yet and it can be done with thin marigolds on if you're nervous.

Bees come back and you don't lose your foraging force. Occasionally the queen crawls back too - to swarm again the next day! Most of the time I find the queen somewhere; potentially she can be re-used.
Sometimes you just can't inspect every week - holidays or work commitments as examples. If they swarm when you're at work, you don't need to worry as they'll go back which is much better than finding the swarm in someone's hedge or chimney.

Stewart, if you do the General Husbandry you'll possibly get Paul Metcalf as the assessor (as I did) and he'll just want you to do a drone.

 

[Skyhook]

I dont like to mark or clip a queen when shes young. When I've done it earlier in my beekeeping career and the queen has subsequently been superceded or failed I've marked it down in my mind as a mistake not to be repeated ( whether that is right or not - but I wont try again ). On the other hand any overwintered queen seems stable enough to be impervious to ill effects of marking or clipping (so long as no physical damage is done to her) IMO.

It's best not to mess around too much with queens until they are over 90 days old AND therefore the majority of the bees in the colony are her daughters. After that you can do pretty much what you like with them, clip them, mark them or both.

Is there a motion before the house in favour of clipping queens at the start of their second season? She shouldn't swarm in her first unless there's something amiss.

.

 

[Hivemaker.]

I would put my house on the vast majority of queens belonging to beefarmers being unclipped,

Please don't do that,you may be correct,athough i doubt it, most i know of clip,even the bigger ones like Murray.

 

[mbc]

Please don't do that,you may be correct,athough i doubt it, most i know of clip,even the bigger ones like Murray.

My house is safe enough if you consider the Yanks, Aussies, Kiwi's, Argies, Brazillians, Mexicans etc.

And the Welsh, probably the English, Irish and Scots too ( how could you miss rampant efb in your brood nests if you are carefully going through to find and clip all your queens ? )

 

[Hivemaker.]

My house is safe enough if you consider the Yanks, Aussies, Kiwi's, Argies, Brazillians, Mexicans etc.

And the Welsh, probably the English, Irish and Scots too ( how could you miss rampant efb in your brood nests if you are carefully going through to find and clip all your queens ? )

Of course,how silly of me,i should of realised you were talking globally and not about beekeeping in the UK.

Regards to spotting disease,that is lack of knowledge in this particular field,something i tend to go on about quite often,one thing that should be made compulsory to learn about.

 

[Teemore]

Regards to spotting disease,that is lack of knowledge in this particular field,something i tend to go on about quite often,one thing that should be made compulsory to learn about.

 

[Norton]

Is there a motion before the house in favour of clipping queens at the start of their second season? She shouldn't swarm in her first unless there's something amiss.

Don't count on it!

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Vox pop http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=12280

 

[mbc]

Of course,how silly of me,i should of realised you were talking globally and not about beekeeping in the UK.

Yes, how silly of you, PH couldnt have been talking about an active British beefarmers forum, could he ?

Otherwise the likes of yourself, ILTD and ChrisB ( who has posted a very nice oxalicking video recently, thanks Chris ) would be on there rather than here.

 

[Poly Hive]

Another case of motorised goal posts then. I see now...

If we are discussing globally, possibly it might just be an idea to say so? Lest we lesser mortals get confused. I thought we were discussing the UK in which case I'll have your front door key now thanks.

Norton no doubt is right though I suspect he is quoting indirectly dear BA.

I used to mark virgins and nothing drastic happened that I recall.

PH

 

[mbc]

Another case of motorised goal posts then. I see now...

If we are discussing globally, possibly it might just be an idea to say so? Lest we lesser mortals get confused. I thought we were discussing the UK in which case I'll have your front door key now thanks.

Norton no doubt is right though I suspect he is quoting indirectly dear BA.

I used to mark virgins and nothing drastic happened that I recall.

PH

I thought you must have been thinking internationally with your "Bee Farmer forum" comment .
Anyway i still back most queens of British beefarmers being unclipped.

 

[newportbuzz]

Of course,how silly of me,i should of realised you were talking globally and not about beekeeping in the UK.

Regards to spotting disease,that is lack of knowledge in this particular field,something i tend to go on about quite often,one thing that should be made compulsory to learn about.

As a fairly new beekeeper in ireland one of the ones tagged. I can tell you i have made myself very available and still havnt seen afb or efb in person. neither can i secure anyone who is competent in the diagnosis of either. I am fairly sure i dont have either but how can i know for certain with only book knowledge.


I am trying to get a group of local beekeepers to pay to have one of the ulster inspectors come down and go through our hives.
There just doesnt seem to be the education or any form of control(that you enjoy) over here except that which is self imposed.

 

[Poly Hive]

Hmm ok mbc.

I am prob going to be shot down on this by Murray but here goes.

Murray does, Hamish does, Scarlet does, Heather hills does, Mason does, and so does Chain Bridge.

Roughly 10k+ colonies.

Keys please...LOL

PH

 

[UEAHoneyBeeMan]

Really interesting to hear all the views.
I usually mark queens once they have mated and are laying consistently.
This season I will be changing several 2 yr old queens (this their 3rd year) so will remove them to a nuc and practice clipping them to see how I get on.

As a matter of interest, I collected 7 swarms last year and not one queen was marked or clipped.
I know a commercial beekeeper with 100+ hives who doesn't mark or clip but instead uses some strange coloured drawing pin system on the back of the hives. I did ask about it once but got a reply that I really didn't understand so didn't ask anymore.

I mark all my queens with the correct colour for the year, again, I know of a master beekeeper who uses "whatever colour comes to hand"!

I may be a relative newcomer, but I believe I am following sound practical beekeeping methods. It appears there are some very long serving beekeepers who don't. Forty Years of poor beekeeping doesn't make you an expert, just a liability to all the new beekeepers that trust your judgement!!!

 

[Poly Hive]

I agree with not following the colour system slavishly. If you are colour blind to red the point is what?

Yellow for a person who works OSR?

I rest me hive tool....LOL

Personally I find green, blue, red and white to work best for me, and as I have yet to have a queen go four years....

PH

 

[mbc]

Hmm ok mbc.

I am prob going to be shot down on this by Murray but here goes.

Murray does, Hamish does, Scarlet does, Heather hills does, Mason does, and so does Chain Bridge.

Roughly 10k+ colonies.

Keys please...LOL

PH

Nice names, but in the real world how many of those 10k+ queens are clipped ? For one, I thought Chain Bridge had a similar policy to my own with regard to only clipping older queens, could be wrong but thats what I was told.

 

[Chris B]

My experience of clipped queens is I often find them still in the hive even as virgins are about to hatch. I reckon they never left but maybe they made it back after a failed swarm, I can't be sure. I can also think of 4 cases last season where we found a clipped queen in the grass some distance from the hives and all had up to 1000 resolute bees sticking with her.

Anyway, queen clipping goes hand in hand with a 10 day inspection cycle. Without clipped queens you need to inspect every 7 days and even that's not failsafe. Those 3 days are very valuable to me.

 

[borderer]

Anyway, queen clipping goes hand in hand with a 10 day inspection cycle. Without clipped queens you need to inspect every 7 days and even that's not failsafe. Those 3 days are very valuable to me.