Laurence Edwards tests three paint pens for marking queen bees. The Posca pen rubs off easily and doesn't work through queen cages. He recommends the oil-based Toma or Uni Paint pens with fine tips, which stay on for years and fit through plastic cage entrances.
Hi, I'm Laurence Ederson, Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. In this video, I'm going to talk to you about the best pens to mark your queens. So I'm going to talk to you about 3 pens today. I'll talk to you about what's good about them, what's bad about them. It comes down to how well this paint on this pen comes off onto the queen and how well it stays on the queen. So First pen on the list is the Posca pen, and this is one of the things that seems to just be passed down from beekeeper to beekeeper, that that is the gold standard in marking your queen. So that's the best pen for the job. That is by far and away the worst pen for the job. Absolutely terrible. It's a water-based paint, has a big fat chubby nib, really difficult to apply through a queen cage because it's got a fat nib that frays quite easily, and then the bees just rub off the paint because it's water-based. Really, really easy for them to rub it off. You often see it, you'll get a circle on the back of the queen, and that's where they've rubbed it away. There's nothing more frustrating than taking the time to go and find the queen, to get her marked, and then to come back and to see that they've rubbed it off. So for me, Posca pens, pen number one, have no place in beekeeping whatsoever. Please don't buy them, they are rubbish. So then the next pen that I want to talk about is a Toma pen, and I did a separate video on these last year. These are really good. So these are an oil-based pen. They come in a thick nib or they come in a thin nib. So if you're buying these to mark your queens up, I do recommend these pens. Go for the fine nib. Makes it so much easier when you're trying to get it through the queen cage. Just gives you a lot more control and it means you're not getting like a big blob on the queen as well. So these are really good. That's pen number 2, a Toma pen. And then pen number 3, and this is my new favorite pen for marking. It's called an Uni Paint Pen. And it's exactly the same as the Toma. So similar size, obviously similar colour. It's white this year and both oil-based paints. But what the Ooni paint's got, there's a little bit of an advantage, is it's a slightly thinner tip. I find the thinner tip is a real advantage for me when I'm doing my marking because I like to use a plastic cage, not one of the wire cages. I find the wire cages are much more prone to slip out of the comb and it's really frustrating when they slip out and you drop the queen. You've got to go searching for the queen again. So I like the plastic ones. But the, the entrance points on the plastic ones are nowhere near as thick, so it works a lot better if you have a thin pen. So there you go, that's it for the video. I just wanted to do a really quick recap on marking queens and which paint pens are best. Definitely my recommendations is either the Toma, which is good, or my new favorite pen is the Uni paint pen. Go for the fine tip version. Both really, really good pens, and they'll mark your queen and it will stay on for years. So as always, thanks for watching. Please hit the subscribe button, please hit the bell so you're notified of every video, and I'll see you next time.
