re-queened 3 hives today. one of the hives they balled the cage. bad sign?
A couple of thoughts comes to mind. Are you sure there isn't a virgin queen running around? How long have they been queen less? It still may take a couple of days for them to accept her.
I went thru the hives the day before & removed the queens so they were queenless for 24 hours. in the other hives 2 seemed like they were having a normal response with some bees showing interest & in a hive where I never found the queen ( no brood of any kind ) the bees are ignoring the cage completely. I even ran this hive thru a queen excluder with a fume board.
Check if there are queen cells or a virgin queen on the hive, if there aren't shake the bees infront of other hives, make another split and try to introduce the queen to that new split. If it happens again it may be that the queen has a defect or problem.
Rober ...
Can you tell us why you are requeening ?
BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)
poor performance. probably should have been done last summer. 2 were swarm queens & the 3rd never really built up last season.