Introducing new queen - trouble (I think)

[WhipCityBeeMan]

I have a hive that i made from a split.  I let them rear their own queens from fresh eggs. Three queen cells were opened after a few weeks but I found no queen, eggs or any sign of  a queen.  I have looked through the hive several times and am certain it is queenless.  Perhaps the queen was killed on a mating flight. 

I bought a new caged queen and introduced her.  After 2 days the bees had almost eaten through the sugar so I released her directly into the hive this afternoon.  She seemed to be getting balled.  The bees covered her to the point where she couldnt move and they seemed to be acting aggressive towards her.  I removed her and put her back in the cage.  Did I do the right thing or was their behavior normal? 

[annette]

Sounds like you might already have a queen in the hive.  I think from the time you see a queen cell to egg laying could be as long as 28 days. I had this same thing happen to me.  Thought I did not have queens only to find out I did not wait long enough.  

[WhipCityBeeMan]

Maybe you are right but I am generally good a spotting them and I have been all through that hive and have seem nothing. I am at day 25 right now so I will see what happens.

[Hethen57]

What are you doing to keep that caged queen alive?

[WhipCityBeeMan]

I am going to take some more frames and make a new nuc with her I guess. 

[sc-bee]

25 days--- give it a little more time.

I had a queenless hive last year I introduced a new queen into. I know for a fact it was queenless. They started balling the queen. I caged her, posted; and the response was there of different reasons for balling, put her back in.

It was hard returning her and watching them ball her again. I closed it up and returned in a few days. There she was in all her glory :-D!

You did the right thing with the queen. My case was different. I knew I had no queen. My point is there are different kinds of balling behavior and I was not aware of that.