Marking the queen
Well, you might have noticed that the blog is about the bees, mostly, but that there is a fair amount of juggling going on with work, family, etc etc. Alongside my first assignment which has been due ( I am doing a course) we have made a model volcano, tested it with mentos and coke, thats a sticky business, and started the process of term end and every event that goes with it.
The hive is growing which is great and we decided to take the feeder off for now to give the bees more chance to go out and forage. We need them to draw out (so thats making comb and putting honey in for eggs and larvae) around three quarters of the brood box (thats the one the queen lives in) before we put the super (thats the box where the honey will be) back on.
Whilst hubby was there ‘just checking’ he managed to mark the queen! This is a job that of course I might have liked to be there for but guess it had to be done sometime.
Why do we mark the queen and what does it mean?
We do it so we can see her really. Its hard to spot the queen in a hive so it just makes it easier. It also means that if you forget how old she is you can work it out. I don’t think I will forget, she’s like family now, along with the guinea pigs, the fish and the cats.
As its 2017 the queen gets marked with a yellow dot. It was lucky I read this as I was starting to choose colours and our daughter had already suggested pink. Anyway turns out each year gets a colour and its an internationally recognised code.
It is quite distinctive and looks like I have marked the photo but there she is, the yellow dot. There, halfway up, towards the right hand side, see it?
The colour code is based on the last digit of the year:
Year ending:
1 or 6 White
2 or 7 Yellow
3 or 8 Red
4 or 9 Green
0 or 5 Blue