Subject: Re: Cutting Queens' Wings...............

From: Bill Henderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 12:28:30 +0100

In message <[email-masked]>
        [email-masked] (Justin Case) writes: 

> why not locate the queen (surely she will be on 
> the ground near the hive) and remove her from the swarm

There have been many occasions when I have been present as a swarm 
has been leaving a hive and sometimes I have managed to pick off the 
old (marked and clipped) queen.

I had to be present at the exact time the queen was leaving. After 
that - little chance. Once she has left the hive surface she is gone 
and lost forever oh my darling Clemi.........  

Remember we are talking about an insect here. How are you going to 
find that on the ground, even only minutes, after it's started on its 
crawl away from the hive.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I just had a thought. You could try this out as a rough approximation 
to the situation.

1.  Go into the garden and get yourself a beetle and put a dod of 
paint on its thorax in the same way as you would mark a queen.
2.  Blindfold yourself.
3.  Spin round a number of times and through away the beetle.
4.  Spin round again.
5.  Take off the blindfold and recover your balance.
6.  Go find your beetle.

-- 
Bill       Br of Cally, Perthshire, Scotland
e-mail     [email-masked]