Easily mark your queens with a small dot on their back (thorax) in order to quickly locate them inside the hive and track their age. In addition, marking queens makes it easy to see if they've been replaced or track when splitting your hives.
From our experience in marking queens, Japanese Uni POSCA Paint Pens work the best because they have a fine, soft tip with a good applicator. The identifying dot should be small so that it doesn't cover any other part of the queen. Normally, queens are marked before they are introduced to a new colony. The paint should be completely dry before the queen is released into the colony.
This paint is blue and good for marking all 2020 queens. Why blue? There is an International Queen Marking Color Code system that beekeepers follow.
Color |
Years Ending |
| White/Gray | 1 or 6 |
| Yellow | 2 or 7 |
| Red | 3 or 8 |
| Green | 4 or 9 |
| Blue | 5 or 0 |