r/Beekeeping Wiki

How To Clip A Queen

  1. Take the queen from the colony and place her into a marking cage
    • A crown of thorns is not a good way to do this. You need one with the bars that go across the top (see below)
  2. Sqush her against the bars of the cage
  3. Carefully take get one of the wings into a position where you can access it using some needle nose scissors
  4. Clip off 50% of one of the larger wings
  5. Release her back into the colony

Image of a queen marking cage

If you are comfortable handling queens by hand, you can do it whilst handling her, but you must be extremely careful not to damage her legs. If you damage her legs, the colony will see her as maimed and supersede her.