Queen Marking
Lexikon
Queen marking is the marking of a queen bee with a small dot of color on the thorax, usually with a lacquer-type marking pen or a glued-on Opalith disc.
Queen marking is the marking of a queen bee with a small dot of color on the thorax, usually with a lacquer-type marking pen or a glued-on Opalith disc. An international color code repeating every five years has become established for this, which makes it possible to read the queen's year of emergence from the color alone without having to look up records.
The color sequence is white, yellow, red, green, blue and repeats every five years in the same order, with each color tied to the last digit of the year. The five colors match the maximum useful life of a queen of about five years, so that each color remains unambiguous in the stock as long as no considerably older queens are still in use.
In day-to-day work with the colony, marking above all makes it easier to find the queen on the comb quickly and to keep track of age when planning breeding, since experience shows that older queens decline over time. A common mistake by inexperienced beekeepers is to use too much paint or glue when marking and thereby accidentally seal the queen's breathing openings or compound eyes, which is why marking should always be done with a steady hand and a small amount.