This Painted Queen Told a Story

A lot of people think beekeepers mark queen bees just to make them easier to find… but that’s actually not the main reason. 🐝 The real purpose of marking a queen is identification. It allows us to know whether the colony is still being led by the original queen we introduced to the hive. 🐝 If we later open the hive and find an unmarked queen, it tells us something important has happened. Either the colony has replaced their queen through supersedure, or the original queen has left with a swarm and a new queen has taken over. 🐝 So when I find a marked queen in a swarm, it instantly tells a story. 🐝 Did you know beekeepers could track a colony’s history just from a tiny coloured dot? — © Hinterland Bees