So I was looking through a three deep strong colony recently and on the bottom I saw a ball of bees. I used the smoker to open them up a bit and there was a little virgin queen. Shorter rear end than a laying queen. So I let them kill her, went away for five or six days, then had a follow up check.
I saw the queen and eggs this time. Strange. What was that little queen doing in the hive and why did the bees ball her? Did she hatch in there or fly there?
There is a colony a few places down in the row that is rearing an emergency queen, maybe she got lost? I'm looking forward to seeing if she's still alive in that one.
Probably flew in. When you have many hives in a line you get many drifters. Virgins returning from a mating flight often go to the wrong hive. Sometimes they get killed and sometimes they are allowed in, and you'll see a 2 queen hive for awhile.
are you certain that the hive killed the virgin queen?
No, that's a good point, I don't know if they killed her or not. They were balling on her and I let them keep it up.
I suspect a lot of times 'balling the queen' is more about protecting the queen than murder. I have noticed balling a number of time in highly agitated hives but these hives don't appear to go gueenless (after the event). in protection of the hive at the front entrance I have seen bee ball 'yellow jackets' and it appears the yellow jacket dies from over heating which I assume COULD also take place when a queen is balled.
I suspect balling=murder is about like the truth that there is exactly 1 queen to a hive?