In this instructional video, Laurence Edwards shows beekeepers how to clip a queen bee’s wings using two practical methods. He first demonstrates picking up the queen with one hand and clipping a single wing directly, explaining hand orientation and the ease of the maneuver. He then shows an alternative technique where the queen is guided onto a frame, pinned down, and the wing is clipped from behind with scissors. Throughout, Edwards discusses handling tips for beginners, how to keep the queen calm, and the importance of clipping both wings a few millimetres to prevent the queen from swarming. He emphasizes that the choice of method depends on the queen’s behavior and the beekeeper’s comfort, reassuring viewers that a properly clipped queen remains healthy and happy.
Chapters
But today we are clipping the queen. Now what I could do is I could just pick the queen up like this. Basically, you need to work out what hand you're working on. So I like to clip with my right hand, but you can just pick the queen up and hold her like that. That is how a lot of people do this manipulation here. So queen's moving, and all you'll come in and do is just clip one of the wings like that. That is a clipped queen. She has done now one wing. Really, really easy. She does not care about that. She's quite happy. But then the other method that I like to use—I'll just get her back into the shot over there. Right, there we go. She's coming in. The other method that I like to use, and I'll just try and do it on her other wing, is I'll come in from behind, and I'll hold her down like that, and then I'll get the scissors in, and I'll cut her from behind. Now, I'm not going to be able to show you this on video because of the way that they're just completely balling her. So I guess you could argue that the other method is a lot easier. I will try and do it though. I'll try and I'll try and get a frame. I'll just take that bee off there, that queen off, just holding the queen in one. One hand, nice and easy. I'm just going to shake off another frame there and try and keep her away from some bees, right? So I'm going to put that queen back on this frame here. So the method that I like to use sometimes is like this. You let the queen walk towards you, you pin her down, and then you're just going in underneath and you're just clipping the wing like that. And you can see I've clipped the other wing now. The queen will walk off, she's perfectly happy. I've taken a couple of millimeters off either wing using 2 Different methods there. If you had to ask me which one do I prefer, I would just say it all depends on kind of how the queen is reacting. If she's going to let you pick her up like that, then go for it. But not everyone likes picking up queens like that. It can be a little bit worrying that you're going to do something to her. But you can see though, I've just got her by her thorax there. She can fully move all the way around. And you'd come in and you'd clip the queen, put her back down there. And then the other way, I would say that it's a bit easier. For beginners is just to pin her down and nip the end of the wing off like that. Either way, you'll end up with a very, very happy queen bee that's not going to go off and go swarming into your neighbor's chimney.
