Clipping Queens Is A Good Idea

The temperatures here have been about normal, I reckon, but the rainfall seems worse than usual. Nevertheless, there will be strong colonies somewhere in my apiaries which will be getting into ‘swarming mode’ in the upcoming weeks. From a honey production as well as a ‘good neighbour’ perspective, swarming is something to be avoided.

So far, I have only pulled frames out of one small colony, to see if they had a queen because I had doubts. Sure enough, the red-dot queen was in there, along with a small patch of brood, including eggs. That colony needs boosting soon because they will take ages to build up into a monster colony on their own. Quite soon, even if this horrible wet weather continues, I’m going to have to start checking the bees, and probably sticking supers onto some. As I use Langstroth hives, I have a little more time than people with single National brood boxes.

Good Practise

We always try to ensure that our queens are marked and clipped by autumn, so that when we go around in the spring we can easily tell whether the bees have changed her majesty (supersedure). Clipping a small piece of one wing is valuable in two ways. Occasionally, the marking-paint rubs off a queen’s thorax. How do you know, upon spring inspection, whether this is your old queen, or if they made a new one? Well, if you clip your queens, it’s obvious.

Why do I care? Up to a point, I suppose I’m happy to have a queen of any age or origin in my colony, especially if she lays well and produces a strong workforce. Maybe I’m a control freak, but I much prefer to know the age of my queens and where they came from. The age is important because I like to re-queen in cases where she is going into her third season. Currently, I have some yellow-dot queens which I want to change this month, using my ‘spare’ over-wintered red-dot queens.

Good Queens

The main point about ‘my’ queens is that they are the daughters of selected breeder-queens. There are no guarantees, but generally those daughters will do better for me than some random queen made by a swarming colony. In my experience, each generation gets progressively worse, by which I mean that they are more bad-tempered and more prone to swarm. It goes like this (each new generation made by swarming or supersedure):

My explanation for this is that, with each new generation, the genetics become more like the average local bee. In my area, these are not the best bees in the world, but they are not terrible. It just depends on how tolerant one is of the odd smaller colony, and the degree to which being dive bombed and stung is a concern. Some people blame all sorts of things, including poor temperament, on the near ‘criminal act’ of importing queens, but I am not convinced. In my area, the bees are a mixed bag, due to decades (or even centuries) of moving bees in and out.

Imported Queens

Some local bees are nice, some are not. Some imported bees are nice, some are not. Some crosses of these two populations are nice, some are not. I think the main argument against importing queens is the risk of importing pathogens and pests that we don’t have here, thus introducing health risks. As I have said before, I think that there is a big difference between importing from Germany/France/Denmark and, say, Southern Italy, Greece, or even Australia or New Zealand. I wonder if the anti-import folks would mind if bees from Ireland, Wales, or Scotland were imported to England? How dare they pollute our multi-ethnic mongrel stock with their sinister dark bees?!

Swarming

Anyway, the other thing about clipping queens is that, theoretically, you won’t lose your bees if they try to swarm. This is crucial from a honey-production standpoint. If there is a flow on, you want your colonies to be massive. They can make plenty of honey without a queen, but not without half of the bees. One problem with open-mesh floors can be that, when the queen-less swarm returns to the hive because the clipped queen can’t fly, they sometimes cluster underneath the floor.

What I tend to find, if a colony has attempted to swarm, is a load of queen cells, no eggs, and no queen. I just leave one queen cell and remove the rest. Importantly, I make a note to come back later in the season to change that queen to one made by me. In my experience, leaving two cells means they will swarm with the first virgin to emerge, but maybe I’m unlucky. If I have spare queens I will remove all cells, then return 4–5 days later to squish any new cells, and introduce a mated queen (or virgin, or queen cell). Unfortunately, they tend to swarm in May, which is well before my new season queens are made.

Rare Event

I cannot think of a good reason not to clip queens. The best way to mark and clip is to pick up the queen with your fingers, rather than use some weird device. As long as you hold her by the wings then thorax, she will be fine. I clip first, then mark. She can stay in a cage for a few minutes until the paint dries, then back to her colony she goes. I have seen bees ball a queen after marking/clipping, but it’s rare. Perhaps the odours from a previously marked queen got onto the current one, and her colony took umbrage. There – I found a reason. But such logic would prevent me ever getting into my van, for fear of some mishap on the roads.

Happy Easter everybody (not that I’m a Christian, just cultural script playing out …)