And I thought that I was the only beekeeper in the world that does not clip queens? wings. So, what a nice surprise when Michael Main said to me the other day, ?I don?t clip my queens; I did so only once and felt terrible for the rest of the day.? 

But, to be a bit more serious. 

There is a well-known bee farmer, David Cramp, who managed 4000 hives in New Zealand in the early 2000s. He wrote an article (on queen clipping) in the November 2009 issue of Beecraft. 

The article begins: 

?I consider this a method of swarm control which is as ineffective and old fashioned as sulphuring bees to obtain honey?? It continues ??Clipping wings is one of the best ways of introducing uncertainty into apiary management that I know of? Honey production was my chief income for many years with many hives. I literally couldn?t afford swarming so had to find the best ways of limiting it. Damaging my production units and introducing uncertainty into my apiary/hive management definitely wasn?t on the list?. 

You can read a copy of David Cramp?s full? BeeCraft article below.?

In his book, A practical Manual of Beekeeping, (2008, p. 10), he says, ?Clipping wings should have no part in beekeeping. On a large scale it would be far too time consuming, and on a small scale it achieves nothing anyway?.?

I personally am really not prepared to mutilate a beautiful queen in order (it is claimed) to reduce the chance of losing a swarm. You will see that David Cramp feels that the generally assumed advantages of clipping are negated anyway. 

As with many things in which we get involved in life, clipping, in general, is often unquestioned ? it?s just what you do. As another example, I recall the often repeated ?fact? that a queen lays 2000 eggs in 24 hours. If you look thoughtfully into this, and apply a bit of simple arithmetic, that seems extremely unlikely to happen on a regular basis. 

Comments, please! Geoff Cooper