Queen balling

[MABee]

If my queen is being balled is this to kill her, protect her, or something else. Will she survive the balling.

[BjornBee]

If my queen is being balled is this to kill her, protect her, or something else. Will she survive the balling.

Depends on the circumstances.

If this was an established queen, and she is getting balled, it could be for disposing her, protecting, or even delaying swarming.

If the queen was recently released into the colony, it may be just due to too little time in getting her acquainted.

I would say that in about 95% of the times a queen is released into a hive and gets balled, she ends up being fine in a day or two. If the bees wanted her dead, they would just kill her and throw her out the front.

I have had queens balled for days, and turned out to be fine and went on to very productive hives.

If you see a queen being balled, just close up the hive. Do not try to save or intervene. If you did everything correctly, like getting the old queen out, etc., then chances are that she will be fine. Give it a few days and look again.