Hi Cory, thanks for answering a question I put to Nathan on his channel, I appreciate you sharing your expertise. Your work is super interesting, tip of the spear stuff. Thanks again mate
with my short experience in beekeeping so far, I like to manually release them after about two days being in the hive. I like to see how they are acting with her in the cage and when she gets released. Gives me ease of mind and I know shes accepted and if she gets balled, I can just pluck her back out and go from there.
All my reared Queens, are clipped/marked 30 to 40 days after they start laying - have used ‘white marking only’ for over 40 year’s - records are kept Even years, part of the right wing is clipped - odd years part of the left wing is clipped - that tells me when I go into the hive, whether it is my original Queen or a superseded Queen
TEK in south-east, Queensland, Australia Any new Queens purchased, I make the Nuce queenless 5 to 7 days prior. After that period, I destroy all Queen cells and place a new queen in the hive, have not had any problems with that Queen being accepted
I thought long and hard about it. I think she was a high performing F1 daughter from one of my breeders that was sent back to me and placed in a nearby nuc. The yellow mark was a slightly different color than my yellow paint marker and she was not clipped. (I always clip and mark mine) So, she lives. 🤣
