bThe Eagle eyed 'Bee Team' were quick to spot our Queen bee marching around on the comb today! Queen bees are marked with a different colour, which indicates the year of their birth. This not only helps spot her amongst a huge amount of bees... (up to 60,000 in the summer!) but allows us to tell her age. Our Queen is a 'yellow' Queen, which means she was born last year in 2017... she is a disc marked Queen, (which looks a bit green) Discs are VERY small plastic discs which are glued to the thorax, they don't hurt the queen at all, just make her easier to identify. We mark our Queens with a drop of special paint, using a small 'cage' she is momentarily kept still for the paint to be dropped on. The children were practising on drones today, so now we have LOTS of marked drones in the hive...! ( I am sure they are all feeling very important now!!)
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