New queen getting balled

D Coates · May 04, 2015, 02:04:22 PM

I installed a new queen in my OB hive. I killed off the old queen when I installed her and I know there's no other queen in there. The queen I killed off hadn't laid an egg (she acted like she was though) in months and so there's no eggs nor larva from her (added brood from donor hives awaiting queen delivery). I had dried granular sugar plug in the JZ cage. It normally takes 2-3 days for them to get through that. Long story short they got through it in a day and she's in a ball up against the glass. She's still alive. Should I get in there and re-cage her or let them sort it out?

Michael Bush · May 05, 2015, 08:36:35 AM

I would blow smoke in the hive until they let her go... Give them something else to worry about and cover her smell. It may be they have been queenless long enough that there are laying workers, but the egg police have just been keeping up so far...

BeeMaster2 · May 05, 2015, 12:57:07 PM

What Michael said.
I gave my observation hive a new queen and tried to use paper between the frames to protect her. I put her in the bottom with a frame of her bees and I put the surviving bees above the paper. When I put the hive back in the house, I saw her above the paper and shortly there after they balled her. The next day she was laying eggs like nothing happened. Apparently the bees that had her in the ball were protecting her.
Jim

D Coates · May 05, 2015, 03:49:38 PM

Quote from: Michael Bush on May 05, 2015, 08:36:35 AM
I would blow smoke in the hive until they let her go... Give them something else to worry about and cover her smell. It may be they have been queenless long enough that there are laying workers, but the egg police have just been keeping up so far...

They weren't queenless except for 5 minutes between when I killed the old one and installed the new one. The hive clearly acted around the old like she was their queen, sniffing, grooming, tending and following but at a respectful distance She'd act like she was laying but would only get about 80% down the cell and stop. Smell the next one and repeat for 4-5 cells and that was it. She'd work drone cells hard repeating the action multiple times switching cell each time but repeating the cells like a queen with OCD. She'd get to the bottom of those. She'd do that for 10-15 minutes. Never and egg in any cell.

I was adding frames of eggs and larve to keep the hive active and going while awaiting a queen shipment. I was avoiding a laying worker by putting the eggs in there. I never saw them working on a queen cell from those eggs which should have been quite obvious from past OB hive experience. Balling their only queen option seems odd considering they've got no eggs. The whole thing is currently confusing. I look forward to seeing how it plays out.

Michael Bush · May 05, 2015, 04:23:32 PM

>They weren't queenless except for 5 minutes between when I killed the old one and installed the new one.

Queenlessness is not the cause of laying workers. Broodlessness is. Also, I would leave them queenless at least 2 hours before putting in the new queen.

D Coates · May 05, 2015, 05:05:11 PM

Laying workers will develop even with a queen present if there's no brood? I learn something every day. Even with that knowledge, there was always at least one frame of brood in at least one stage from when I introduced her. I would have liked to have left them without a queen longer but my schedule and the OB hive's location in a business wouldn't allow it.

Michael Bush · May 06, 2015, 08:53:23 AM

>Laying workers will develop even with a queen present if there's no brood?

See page 11 of Wisdom of the hive:
"the queen's pheromones are neither necessary nor sufficient for inhibiting worker's ovaries. Instead, they strongly inhibit the workers from rearing additional queens. It is now clear that the pheromones that provide the proximate stimulus for workers to refrain from laying eggs come mainly from the brood, not from the queen (reviewed in Seeling 1985; see also Willis, Winston, and Slessor 1990)."

D Coates · May 06, 2015, 11:10:37 AM

Like I said I learn something everyday. Thanks Michael. Just an update I took off the cover to review the hive this morning and there's my marked queen walking and examining cells. No laying yet but clearly not being balled or even hassled.

D Coates · May 11, 2015, 12:18:33 PM

Final update. She's now laying up a storm. She did loose her left rear leg in the balling though. It'll be interesting to see how she fares.

BeeMaster2 · May 11, 2015, 05:55:13 PM

Quote from: D Coates on May 11, 2015, 12:18:33 PM
Final update. She's now laying up a storm. She did loose her left rear leg in the balling though. It'll be interesting to see how she fares.

D,
If it was a front leg it would be serious. Queens use their front legs to measure the size of the cells to determine whether to fertilize an egg that is to be laid in a worker cell or to not fertilize an egg that she is going to lay in a drone cell. If you watch, she will reach into each cell with her front 2 legs and measure it before she lays an egg.
Hind legs on a queen are just for travel on the comb.
Jim

D Coates · May 11, 2015, 06:04:56 PM

Yea, I was concerned until I remembered the measures with the front not the back. She walks hauntingly if she's moving to the right because she's got all that weight but only 2 legs.

OldMech · May 11, 2015, 11:35:44 PM

Interested to see if they decide to supersede her.. Keep us updated! Glad shes got the ball rolling finally.