The Bee Bench › Queen Marking Color
👑 Queen Marking Color
Five colors on a five-year rotation, agreed internationally. Mark her and you never
again have to wonder how old the queen in that hive is.
The rotation
The mnemonic most people learn it by is Will You Rear
Good Bees — white, yellow, red, green, blue, in that order, for years ending
1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5, then repeating for 6 through 0.
Marking her. Use a proper queen marking pen — the water-based paint pens sold for the job,
not enamel or nail polish, which can seep and kill her. One small dot on the thorax, the flat plate
between her wings. Never on the abdomen and never on her head. Let it dry a good half minute before
you release her, or the bees will try to clean off the wet paint and ball her.
An unmarked queen isn't necessarily a young one. If you find a queen with no dot in a hive
you thought was marked, the colony has superseded or swarmed and requeened itself. Mark her with
the current year's color when you find her — you know at least that she is new to you.
Most beekeepers replace at two years. A queen can live five, but her laying falls off and
her pheromone weakens after the second season, and a colony with a fading queen is a colony
getting ready to swarm or supersede at a moment you didn't pick.