# Question about marking a bee.



## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

I am assuming your talking Queen. Pick them up bare handed by wings. transfer to lower thorax between index and thumb. Dab a piece of angle hair pasta in Testers model paint. place a dab on the top of her thorax, blow for a few seconds to skim the paint over.

It is good and simple to practice on drones!


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## tech.35058 (Jul 29, 2013)

Tenbears said:


> It is good and simple to practice on drones!


with a different color paint !


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## redsnow (Dec 26, 2015)

Really I'm more interested in marking worker bees. 

I'd like to time their flight from my bait box, to their hive and back. Feral bees.

I've marked bees using a grass stem dipped into a drop of paint. But I've always put it on their butt, up under it's wings.


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## drlonzo (Apr 15, 2014)

You can always flour dust them. Catch them at the feeder, sprinkle flour on them.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Just curious, what is the best and easiest way to mark a bee? And what location, up front or on it's butt?

If you want to mark them permanently, do it on the middle of their thorax (back). A marking tube would probably help, but it needs a tighter mesh to hold a worker...

If you want to mark them temporarily drlonzo has it. Use flour. If you want to tell one from the other, buy colored chalk for a chalk line and sprinkle different colors on them...


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## tech.35058 (Jul 29, 2013)

I was thinking about trying this next summer.
I was thinking of using colored powdered sugar ... but do the bees in the hive not clean off the dusts (chalk, flour, sugar ) before the bee returns?


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## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

I used interior house paint (left over) and a q tip. I set a plastic bowl filled 1" dry sugar then added a little water so that the bees could still walk on the wet sugar crystals and not get stuck. 

Got carried away and ended up marking too many bees the same and could not tell them apart. It was still interesting, some of these bees kept coming back for days, while many did not. 

Have fed dry pollen sub and the bees get completely covered, easy to watch them fly. Plus if they take it back to the hive it's good for them. but I do think they clean it off before returning. If your bee lining it should help.

In Africa they use tree sap to glue a 6" piece of grass to the thorax of a bee then then follow it back to the hive.


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## WWW (Feb 6, 2011)

FlowerPlanter said:


> In Africa they use tree sap to glue a 6" piece of grass to the thorax of a bee then then follow it back to the hive.


HA, that's so cool, I figure a bee with a blade of grass trailing behind it would be really easy to follow.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Even a small down feather helps a lot. It makes a much larger silhouette when they fly up and slows them quite a bit. Pine sap works. Super glue works...


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## redsnow (Dec 26, 2015)

I've read about folks gluing a strip of foil Christmas tree tinsel on their butt. I'm sure that would slow down it's flight speed, but it would still fly faster than a person could run. 

Last fall I marked several bees using White Out. It worked well on the bees that I got marked clean, but I also gunked up a couple, getting it on their wings/legs. That big Q-tip sized brush is just too big. Using a toothpick dipped into the bottle worked much better. It seemed like the bees were attracted to smell of the whiteout, I had a couple land on the brush, and got all stuck up. I won't use it again. 

I've also marked them using paint, spray out a little dab in a bottle cap, just enough to get a "run", dip a grass stem into the wet paint and poke the bee on it's butt.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

If you want to follow the bees back to their hive supergue a piece of tensil, you should be able to on see them a long way lol


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

Michael Bush said:


> Even a small down feather helps a lot. It makes a much larger silhouette when they fly up and slows them quite a bit. Pine sap works. Super glue works...


That reminds me of a story my grandpa told about jamin chicken feathers in a horse flys rear when they were kids for fun lol


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## JohnBruceLeonard (Jul 7, 2015)

redsnow - thanks for the thread, I am at the same business and the responses here have given me some good ideas. 

Might I ask in passing how you reckon time to distance? I've found varying approximations.


Harley Craig - when I was a boy it was pine needles, not chicken feathers - and I'm afraid I can't pass this off to merely something my grandpa recounted.

John


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## redsnow (Dec 26, 2015)

We have a discussion going on in the "history of beekeeping" board: Wild bees, distance from hive...

There is a formula in that thread, distance/minute.

Honestly, you'd think that someone would have a more accurate time frame. 

But read the other thread. Before the end of this coming summer, we'll have something a little bit more accurate!


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Why don't you dust them with powdered sugar as they exit the hive?

In old books that describe "bee lining" bees that come to the plate with honey on it have to walk across a ring of powdered rouge to get to the honey attractant. Which makes me wonder if the bees would get enough red powdered carpenter's chalk on them if you poured some on the landing board so foraging bees would have to walk through it. Maybe that work for you.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

why even worry about the time? just set out 3 different bait stations, at least 100 yds apart and take an aerial map with you. Draw lines in the direction the majority of the bees are heading from each station. Where the lines intersect should be pretty close to your source.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Two stations are adequate, from what I have read.


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## JohnBruceLeonard (Jul 7, 2015)

redsnow - Thanks very much for the tip! I'll head over directly.

Harley Craig - an interesting idea...

John


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>why even worry about the time? just set out 3 different bait stations, at least 100 yds apart and take an aerial map with you. 

You walk a lot less if you use time... Math is easier.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

Michael Bush said:


> >why even worry about the time? just set out 3 different bait stations, at least 100 yds apart and take an aerial map with you.
> 
> You walk a lot less if you use time... Math is easier.


if they were robots I would agree, I'm not familiar with the formula, but I would assume it factors in time in the hive Simple math tell me if your marked bee spends even 1 min longer than what you account for in the formula you use, that is 1320 ft off the mark. What if the balance was lopsided because they just went through a supercedure or something and the handoff of nectar was delayed due to a short supply of house bees? What if your formula only accounted for lets say 1 min in the hive and they spent 5 min in the hive.... IMO there are too many variables with math alone. If you had the formula down, I think it would be a good check against vectoring to ensure the bees coming to the different bait stations are coming from the same hive.


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## redsnow (Dec 26, 2015)

Guys, we're not all on the same page! We sure did drag this thread off of the topic of "marking a bee".

I'll start another thread on the History of beekeeping board.

Honestly, what I was getting at, is how to find a wild hive. Parts unknown. Location, who knows? 

We can't dust them leaving the hive, cause we don't know where it's located. I really don't think expecting them to walk across powdered chalk would work. Most times, bees will "hover" and just plunk down on the bait. Trying to find or notice a little bit of dust on their legs would be hard to notice.

But give me a few minutes and I'll start a new thread, that way we can all stay on the same wavelength.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

The powdered rouge idea came from a book from the 1840s, by John Borroughs, "Small Eyes and Other Papers". They were describing the hunting of bee trees. So, apparently it does work. The red color makes the bees easier to see as they fly away from the station. Having two stations makes triangulation easier. Pointing the direction of flight.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

redsnow said:


> Guys, we're not all on the same page! We sure did drag this thread off of the topic of "marking a bee".
> 
> I'll start another thread on the History of beekeeping board.
> 
> ...


Do some research on 'bee lining'. ..that is what you are looking for.


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## redsnow (Dec 26, 2015)

Here is one of my baits from last fall. The majority of the bees never touch the bowl, most will land directly on the bait.

http://s36.photobucket.com/user/reddsnow/media/098_zpsfevcsika.jpg.html?o=3

Above where I said we're not all on the same page, I'm used to sticking to the topic of the thread: "Marking a bee." This thread has ranged far and wide.

But I started another thread in the "history section", there we can talk more about bee lining.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

redsnow said:


> , I'm used to sticking to the topic of the thread: .


 haven't been around these parts long have ya :lpf: You will find thread drift a fairly common occurrence here.


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## JohnBruceLeonard (Jul 7, 2015)

Apologies, redsnow; I think I've contributed in large part to derailing this thread. It was not intentional. I should have sent my question in a private message.

I'll be going out bee hunting tomorrow or the next day, weather permitting (as, sadly, it almost certainly will), and I intend to try both flour and carpenter's chalk to mark the bees I catch. I'll let you know how it goes.

Incidentally, I discovered the day before yesterday - though this is surely no surprise - that dust taken from the ground is next to useless.

John


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Conversations don't stick to one topic. We haven't strayed very far off.


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## redsnow (Dec 26, 2015)

I understand everything mentioned above, but I'm looking for a "semi-permanent" mark. Maybe for a week or so. 

I've never tried to mark a bee up near it's head. 

I'm not confident enough to try and mark the Queen. But more or less I was just interested in marking bees on my bait. 

I'm surprised that there isn't a more accurate measure for bee travels. I mean, if a person would flour-dust a bee from your hive, and time it's arrival back to the hive, at least then you'd have an idea of where it's feeding. 

Don't know! Complicated little creatures.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Paint should be done in the middle of the back. Not the head. Not the abdomen. None on the sides because that is where they breath...


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## redsnow (Dec 26, 2015)

Ok, thanks. Michael, above you mentioned a "marking tube", is that more or less just a screen funnel ? Something that you could hold and kind of secure the bee to be marked? 

I've only marked a few bees, it's kind of tricky to get up under their wings, when it's just sitting there on bait, and not get paint on it's wings. I've had my best luck with a little grass stem, the size of a toothpick point, and a little dab of paint. Just a tiny little drop of paint on the tip.


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