Hello everyone!
Here is the situation: my husband and I performed a (successful) removal on New Year's Day, we located the queen and placed her in a plastic catcher and secured her in the hive box. Returned that night and removed hive, all the bees were inside and we even saw them begin to march in before we left earlier that day. We place them in a new location, with the queen still secured in the catcher in the hive. We returned today (3 days later) to release the queen onto a frame. A few workers had accumulated inside the clip and all seemed normal. However, upon releasing her the bees began to ball around her aggressively. We managed to re-catch her, and after a few minutes were able to remove most of the workers who were caught inside with her. We went through the frames looking for a second queen on any queen cells and none were found. My husband and I have done multiple removals in this way; clipping the queen, securing her inside the hive, then releasing her some time after the hive was relocated. We are stumped as to why the colony would have behaved this way towards her. Any thoughts ???? Thanks for your help in advance !!! :)
727,
Sometimes bees will ball the queen to protect her from a threat.
I added 2 frames of bees with no queen to a small hive of bees in my observation hive. I put a piece of paper between the new bees and the old bees but the queen and some of her bees moved above it. The next thing I see, the bees balled the queen. I had eggs in the hive so I let it play out. The next morning that same queen was laying eggs everywhere. They balled her to protect her not kill her.
Jim
What Jim said. When I release her after a removal, I take the clip out of the hive, open it at the entrance, and let her walk in. I don't disturb them again for 48 hours. Never lost one that way yet.
Thanks for replying! Glad to know it the events of today weren't as bizarre as we had originally thought. Will keep an update on how the hive is doing.
727, I had the same experience you did last summer. I thought because I opened the hive they blamed the queen and was killing her. Others on this forum suggested otherwise and they were right (Thank God).
btw, welcome to the forum.
welcome
most times answers are location specific