This is a kinder marking device
http://youtu.be/CiWxx_3gUbc
WW
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This is a kinder marking device
http://youtu.be/CiWxx_3gUbc
WW
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
This of course is the best way well presented with no silly chit
http://youtu.be/R4Sb6J_uY3E
WW
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That's a great video wee willy.
I reckon manually marking a queen is one of those landmark events for beekeepers … in no particular order of merit (though this is often the order they happen in)
Your first honey
Your first swarm
Your first grafted queen
Your first queen picked up, marked and safely returned
I still remember the first one I marked like that … I was really chuffed. Of the next two, one flew off never to be seen again and the other was balled :(
The fact she's still running around under the cage suggests they're not crushing her ;) You'd hope they'd learn from the experience. There is a reason I tend to buy up thick leather gloves at associate auctions, take them home and burn them and that video is one of them.
If they do it again like that, I'd agree they're morons, especially if they either get helpful comments or some experienced one to one help as a result. Everything in that video suggests they're new beekeepers trying their best to follow reasonable advice and making a complete hash of it; I've been there, done that more than once, I just didn't post a vid of me doing it on you tube.
WW nice video. After years of pinching her by the wings I bought that plunger and catcher set last year, it works a treat very tidy little white spot, no stress. Almost always had couple of workers in with her. Very handy as the faculties deteriorate
The other dependable way to catch queens if you don't want to use your mitts directly is one of those glass or plastic "crack" pipes sold by Thorne's (and no doubt others):
Attachment 1947
These are easy to use. Take out the foam bung from the 'bowl' end. Put it the bowl over the queen against the comb. Be patient. She'll eventually walk up the pipe. Lift it off the comb, putting your thumb over the end. She will by now be backing back down the pipe. Pop the foam bung back in place. If you want to mark her in one of those plunger-type cages (or put her in a queen cage) remove the small plug from the thin end of the pipe … aim it correctly and either wait for her to make her own way down or (much, much faster) give a quick puff through the foam bung in the bowl end and she'll be jet propelled into the cage :D
Would this pipe work? http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/01/21/uqe9yreh.jpg
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Depends what you put in it.
A quote from a purvayor of fine herbs and prescribed chemicals;
"I don't advise a haircut, man. All hairdressers are in the employment of the government. Hair are your aerials. They pick up signals from the cosmos and transmit them directly into the brain. This may be the reason bald-headed men are uptight.
Relax, man, find your neutral space. You got a rush. It will pass. Be seated."
A natural beekeeper me'thinks !
And here I am in Haddington to blether about bees and the internet. Anyone out there in cyberland want to say anything to the beekeepers of East Lothian? We'll stop by here again later on in the talk .....
If you want to see what East Lothian beekeepers look like, try the 'Communications' thread where I put a picture of them when I was last here.
Bee flowers out on the way here - willows, still some hazel, blackthorn is out, rape is extending but is still a couple of weeks away.
G.