Green queen

What you need to catch and mark a queen

Knowing I had a queen in the nuc, I also knew I had to mark her if I wanted to have a chance of finding her easily ever again. Promising the pupils great excitement (after all, I've never marked a queen before and it's not exactly an everyday event), three of them accompanied me to the nuc.

As if to prove how difficult it is to find an unmarked queen even when you only have three frames to choose from, the queen remained sulkily hidden. Instead we did see a number of queen cups, one of which had an egg in it! I couldn't believe it - surely the nuc hive, which is half empty, isn't seriously considering swarming. Doing a swarm control of the swarm control is taking things a bit too far in my opinion. Obviously the bees think differently. Anyway, I destroyed that cell and will have to keep close tabs on the nuc to ensure the queen stays where I want/need her.

Unfortunately the queen did not show herself while the pupils were in attendance. After they all left to go to the various pursuits and activities the school day offers I went through the frames again and again, ever more frantically. The bees put up with it very sweetly, though their temper was ever more closely matching mine. Frustration is the word. Finally I saw her. Now, trying to catch the queen while holding the frame is not easy. I used this plastic pipe-like instrument that apparently makes catching her really easy. Apparently: I had her, then she escaped, then I had her again and this time I managed to trap her and transfer her into the marking chamber (with her almost escaping three times int he process). But even then she did not play along. The marking chamber has a lattice on one side and you gently squash the queen against this, back towards the lattice, so you can paint the dot on her back. The queen obviously only ever put her stomach towards the lattice. I don't know if there's some trick to making her turn around, but if there is, I certainly don't know it and she didn't respond to cajoling, threats or any turn of the chamber.
In the end she did what was required and with shivering hand, I marked her green. Phew!

A newly 'crowned' queen