Queen Rejection

[Yuleluder]

What type of activity takes place when the workers reject a introduced queen? I made a nuc on thursday and went back to see if the bees had released her today. They had just about chewed thru all of the candy so I decided to pull the cork out the other side of the cage. The bees were all over the queen cage even after the queen was out. I checked the two frames full of bees for the queen. I couldn't find her. I then saw a clump of about 20 bees on the bottom of the nuc. It was the queen with a bunch of workers all around her. They looked as though they were stinging her. I put her back in the cage and placed beeswax over the hole. Is it too late, is she a goner?

[oregonsparkie]

What you are seeing is the workers "BALLING" the queen. They use there body heat to kill her. I have something similar a couple of months ago. I requeened a small hive, went back a few days later and the queen was still in the cage so I released her and they started balling her. I put her back into the cage and let them finish releasing her. Then they accepted her.

[Yuleluder]

Two days ago they weren't bringing any pollen in. Today they were only bringing in dandelion pollen, this struck me as odd because the other two hives I have were bringing in multiple pollens. Does this mean they are trying to raise there own queen. I looked for queen cells, and I found something which looked similar but there was no larvae or egg inside of it. There were eggs available though.

[Yuleluder]

I put both corks back into the queen cage. I will not remove the cork until I see them feeding her. I dropped some sugar water into her cage so she would have soemthing to eat. Tommorow I will check back on the queen. I really thought she was a goner the way they were all over her. I knew something was wrong when I noticed them killing one of the attendants. This attendant had a little bit of the marked queens blue color on her. That's what through the red flag. I dropped the cork into the nuc. They were even dragging the cork from the queen cage out the entrance of the hive.

[oregonsparkie]

The queen can not feed herself for what I understand, it takes attendant bees to feed her. I would look very close to make sure you do not have another queen in the hive, if not you can try shaking them out in front of the hive about 20 feet. This kind of disorients them and I think there will be a better chance of acceptance when this happens

[Michael Bush]

>What type of activity takes place when the workers reject a introduced queen?

They "ball" her.

>It was the queen with a bunch of workers all around her. They looked as though they were stinging her.

Yes, just like that. But they usually don't sting her, they just suffocate her.

>I put her back in the cage and placed beeswax over the hole. Is it too late, is she a goner?

Probably not, but you need to get them to accept her. A push in cage is probably the most reliable method. Especially if there is any emerging brood. You put the cage over the emerging brood and the young bees become her entrouage and she begins laying in the now empty cells and a laying queen is almost always accepted. You can make one from #8 or #7 hardware cloth easily or you can buy one from Betterbee.

"Other bees, from the interior of the hive, gradually coming to their assistance and confine her still more narrowly, all having their heads towards the centre where the queen is inclosed; and they remain with such evident anxiety, eagerness, and attention, that the cluster they form may be carried about for some time, without their being sensible of it. A stranger queen, so closely confined and hemmed in, cannot possibly penetrate the hive. If the bees retain her too long imprisoned, she perishes. Her death probably ensues from hunger, or the privation of air; it is undoubted, at least, that she is never stung. We never saw the bees direct their stings against her, except a single time, and then it was owing to ourselves. We endeavoured, from compation for a queen's situation, to remove her from the center of a cluster; the bees became enraged; and, in darting out their stings, some struck the queen, and killed her. It is so certain that the stings were not purposely directed against her, that several of the workers were themselves killed; and surely they could not intend destroying one another. Had we not interfered, they would have been content with confining the queen, and would not have massacred her."

François Huber, 28 August 1791. New Observations on the Natural History of Bees

[Yuleluder]

"A push in cage is probably the most reliable method. Especially if there is any emerging brood. You put the cage over the emerging brood and the young bees become her entrouage and she begins laying in the now empty cells and a laying queen is almost always accepted. You can make one from #8 or #7 hardware cloth easily or you can buy one from Betterbee."

Do you know where one might find plans to build one of these. It sounds as the I just bend the hardware cloth into a square with one side open, and then just push it into the brood comb. Making sure the queen is inside the hardware cloth. Do you wipe away all bees on the emerging brood?

[Michael Bush]

I just make them out of hardware cloth. Cut a piece about four inches square and cut the corners so you can bend it to make it 3/8" to a 1/4" high and put the queen on the emerging brood and push in the cage.

http://members.aol.com/queenb95/QnIntroInstr.html
http://www.honeyflowfarm.com/beeproject/images/puchincagelarge.jpg

[busybguy]

I had a problem last year getting the nuc bees to accept a new queen. THEY TRIED TO BALL HER TWICE AND i SAVED HER BUTT BOTH TIMES. i was eating dinner and staring at the cage saying out loud, "what am I going to do with you little lady". I don't know if bees can read minds or not but the answer flashed in my mind - mix a 4 parts water to 1 part sugar, put it in a spritzer bottle and take the frames out one by one spraying the bees with the sugar water(one spray is lots ) Spritz the queen while she is still in the cage then release her into the hive. The bees all smell and taste like syrup and they are so busy cleaning themselves up that the queen is in like Flynn. I used this method three more times and it worked. I told a fellow beekeeper and he introduced 20 queens with 100% acceptance.
Good management outweighs good luck every time.

[Yuleluder]

I guess you will be sacrificing some of the emerging brood when using s push cage?

[Michael Bush]

Not much, just on the borders.

[Yuleluder]

Well I thought the bees had accepted her, but once again they went back to balling her. I installed the push cage this afternoon. I found a bee beginning to emerge and I placed the cage with the queen inside and pushed it into the wax. Of course I had to bang all the bees off before I was able to place the cage.

Michael,

How long should I wait before checking on the cage? Why did alot of bees come to the entrance and fan like crazy after placing the push cage? Were they trying to get rid of the queens scent?

[Michael Bush]

They often fan just because you opened the hive to let any lost bees know where they are. It has nothing to do with getting rid of the queen's scent, it's the Nasonov pheromone they are putting out for any incoming bees to find.

[Yuleluder]

Well they accepted the queen today. I pulled the frame on which I installed the push cage. There were very few bees on it, but inside it were close to twenty newly emerged bees. I also spotted a few eggs on the empty cells. The queen wasn't balled after I removed the cage either. The workers were feeding her and shuttling her around the frame.

Thanks MB for the heads up on the Push cage!

[Yuleluder]

checked out this nuc yesterday, and the queen was MIA. I rechecked the hive an hour later and she was still MIA. This queen was marked and clipped. I am wondering if this is the reason she was killed( I am assuming they killed her). There was eggs, and young larvae, so they must have done it recently. Just odd that they discarded her after a month.

[Michael Bush]

Or you just didn't find her yet. I've often not found a queen and found her on a later visit.

[Yuleluder]

The Queen is most definitely gone. I looked today, and she was no where to be found. I saw about 5 or 6 queen cells, which were capped.