Hey everybody, I pleasantly stumbled upon this blog today and i’m glad to see this year’s Team Echinacea is up and running. Everything is looking good. The Flog is definitely proving to be a useful, as well as fun and interesting tool. I was a member of Team Echinacea last year as well as the Bee Team.
I recently got the chance to watch an experienced beekeeper mark a queen honey bee. The process was very quick and easy and I think could be tailored to use in the field in MN. There is a special container used for capturing and marking. A marking pen with special bee marking paint is used. There is no cooling involved. I’m going to try to find a website that explains this. The marking paint used by beekeepers is designed to last for the lifetime of the bees. Here is a video from youtube that demonstrates the marking of a queen bee.
I think that you guys should invest in some marking pens and look into getting other beekeeping equipment, at least just to see what is out there. Last year we didn’t really look into that stuff so we were just kind of reinventing the wheel.
-Jameson
Hi Jameson!
That bee marker looks like a good idea. We should try it out and it may even be possible this year because flowering is so late.
I am amazed how easy it looks to handle that queen bee. Who is going to try the bare-fingered handling of an Agapostemon virescens?
Good to hear from you & thanks for thinking of us!
Stuart
Honey bees have been domesticated over 100s of years and most varieties have been bred to be very docile. I wouldn’t try to handle any wild bees like the guy in the youtube video. The guy I saw mark a bee didn’t bare hand it, he used a nifty contraption that had an opening in the top that the marking pen could fit through.
Nifty contraption!?!! That sounds nifty and intriguing. Any idea if/where we could get one?