Queen Marking Pens

Finding the queen in your hive can be challenging. Make it much easier by marking her with a small dot on the back of her thorax. If you use the international color code below, you can also track her age. Queen marking helps you know if the queen has been superseded. It also helps you with splitting your hive. One of the biggest challenges when splitting hives is knowing where  the queen is. Marking her makes the job far easier.

The Japanese Uni POSCA Paint Pens work well the best because they have a  soft tip with a good applicator, and they are less toxic than some of the marking pens available.  Make sure  the paint is completely dry before the queen is released into the colony.

The paint color for 2022 is yellow.