When a queen bee finds herself in a new colony, the bees have to make a choice and decide her fate. Do they want to keep her and accept their queen or do something cruel to her and kill her by creating a ball of bees around her. There are different kinds of balls and it does not always mean that the bees want to kill their queen.
Why do bees kill the queen by balling?
Bees are very suspicious of anything that comes into their hive from the outside. They have many natural enemies in nature. They are also cautious of new queens. First of all, they want to breed their own queen. And if they have even the slightest chance to do this, they accept new queens very badly, create a ball around her and eliminate.
Therefore, it is better to place a new queen when the colony has no eggs and larvae of its own from which the bees themselves can breed their own queen.
The bees also accept well queens that have emerged from the queen cell in the hive itself. They believe that if a queen has emerged from the queen cell, she is their own. Therefore, the reception of queen bees is much better and friendlier.
A ball of murder
If we introduce a young unfertile queen into the colony, the bees may be aggressive towards her and perceive her as a stranger. Then they attack her and form a ball within which they kill her.
Killing the queen is carried out by stinging and raising the temperature at which the queen simply cannot survive. From such a deadly ball, the queen has no chance of escaping without human help. She’s doomed to die. It all happens in a matter of minutes. And if the beekeeper notices it, he has a few moments to save the queen.
A ball of defence
Bees may take a queen in a ball to protect her. This happens when a new queen is introduced into a hive without a queen. But she is not placed alone, but, for example, on a frame with her own bees from her colony.
In this case, her own bees, feeling threatened by other bees may take the queen into a club to protect her. This balling is not dangerous to the queen. After a short time, when the aggression of the alien bees subsides, the ball will break up and the queen will be released into a new colony.
Welcome balling
This is sometimes the case when a queen is placed in a hive that has not had a queen for a long time. The bees start to actively seek her to exchange pheromones with her. At this point, a ball of bees forms around the queen, eager to communicate with the new queen. This ball does not mean that the bees want to kill the queen. This type of club can be called a welcome balling.
What to do if you see that bees have taken a queen in a ball?
If the beekeeper does not come to the aid of the queen in time, she may be stung or suffocated to death. When you see that the bees are beating the queen, you should take the ball out of the hive and start fumigating it with smoke until the bees fly away, but the hot smoke should not get on the queen, then you take the queen and put it back in the cell. You can also put the ball in a bowl of warm water or spray the ball with water from a sprayer. The method with water is more reliable as the queen with wet wings will not fly away.
Then we launch the uterus back in the cage and put in the hive for 2-4 days, again let out, after 20 minutes look, if they beat again, it is better to make a new nucleus, wait 2- 3 days, cut off the queen cells and put in a new nucleus.
Conclusion
Bees can surround the queen with a ball. Not always to kill. Sometimes they make a club to protect or to express their welcome.
