Perry's Bees......Newspapers.........and Balling queens

[Lburou]

I remember reading a passage in one of Brother Adam's books where he noted that his bees did not fight when placed into a new hive (on a frame with adhering bees).  He said he'd read and heard of bees fighting when they were directly introduced, but had never seen it himself (or, words to that effect).  Michael Bush, describing his method of splitting, reports breaking hives into components and just mixing boxes directly from one hive with another -with care taken to be sure eggs were present if the queen was absent. 

There seems to be quite a bit of variability in philosophies and practices when combining bees. The 'school' solution is to do a newspaper combine.   I've successfully moved a frame with brood or honey and adhering bees to another NUC or hive many, many times for different expected outcomes.

Last week I lost a queen in a mating NUC when combining two groups of bees.  The day after combining four half frames of bees,  I caught them balling the queen of the original NUC.  Put another queen in (caged) and the same thing happened on release.  Last week a neighbor, had his queen balled while augmenting a weaker hive with a frame of brood and adhering bees.  He later released that same queen from a cage only to have her killed.  Is it this time of year?  If not, what?

Has anyone broken the code on when and why bees will ball the queen?  More specifically, are there rookie actions and manipulations that trigger balling the queen?  (Although I've kept bees for a long time, I'm not immune to rookie mistakes). Does the season have an effect on bees and balling queens?

I've seen queens balled when a swarm landed with three or four queens in one of my mating NUCs.  I took the queens from those balls, and none of them survived more than a day. How often does a queen survive balling?  I've only seen one queen survive balling, it seemed they were protecting her.

We could learn from you more accomplished beekeepers if you would share in discussions of combining and Queen balling.  TIA 

[Scott Derrick]

Lburou,

I wish I could describe a method that could give you a path to follow or a method to use but I can't. I've done all of the above with varying results. It's actually quite frustrating. You'd think there would be a method to the madness but if there is I haven't found one. I have the most success during the very early spring. The bees don't seem to give a darn when they are combined. But then again I've introduced bees into weaker hives even then with mixed results. I often believe it has something to do with the attitude of the bees. The most success I've had is when both colonies are calm and in no way edgey.

Having failures and success with both it think it's almost a "crap shoot". IMHO.

[Jen]

Agreed Scott, but the crap shoot is tough when we're on the edge of the snow season. I'm dealing with a combine myself. Think I'll do it over the weekend. I sure hope it works, cause if they kill the queen, there is no drones to mate this time of year. Sketchy

[Scott Derrick]

Jen do they have plenty of honey? I'd think that might be a reason the fight could amped up.

[brooksbeefarm]

Odd this came up today I just got back home from putting a queen right hive on top of a queenless hive.I usually have newspaper under the truck seat, but couldn't find any, so i found my bottle of vanilla extract i keep in my Bee tool box and mixed it in my spray bottle with 1 to 1 sugar syrup and sprayed the inside of both hives (beed amd all) before i put them together (did i mention it was raining ) and drove off. I have done this many times and never had a problem that i remember? I think lemongrass oil or anything with a strong smell would work to mask the queens pheromone as long as it's not harmful to the bees. Jack

[Jen]

Jack, being an inventive beekeeper is important. Thinking of my frankenframes 

[Lburou]

....bottle of vanilla extract i keep in my Bee tool box and mixed it in my spray bottle with 1 to 1 sugar syrup and sprayed the inside of both hives (bees and all) before i put them together.....

I've done that with success.  Also used HBH and sugar water. 

[riverbee]

i have been very successful with combining bees by the newspaper method, and i don't use anything special.  i do take into consideration, the AGE of the bees when combining, older bees can be quite particular.  having tried to requeen them is a lost cause for the most part and combining is really the best method. i have done this on full deep hives not in nucs lee.

another thread on 'balling of the queen' which includes a pdf file but i will attach the pdf file here as well from abc xyz of bee culture:

keeping me guessing

have a question for you lee, the title of the thread? perry's bees?  our perry?

[Lburou]

have a question for you lee, the title of the thread? perry's bees?  our perry?

Yes, our Perry.  He mentioned his bees reading newspaper yesterday or the day before. 

As a side note about newspaper and bees...During a short, short afternoon spent with tec last year, he showed me something new and interesting.  He had a weak colony in a deep hive body.  He placed a queen excluder over a stronger colony, then a newspaper, and then the weak colony box over that with a small entrance of their own.  This allowed him to unite the two colonies of bees long enough to more or less equalize the strength of the two colonies.  One more use for newspaper.  Nifty trick thought Lee.  A trick one could use to beef up a weak colony before fall honey flow, or winter in the south of the USA.   

[Gypsi]

Well it does seem to be the year for balling or rejecting installed queens. I bought 2 queens on Sept 19th.  One went in a queenless hive, well apparently queenless, I had never seen eggs nor uncapped brood in it unless I added it, 2 boxes just packing in the groceries. I did nothing fancy to get her accepted, the bees actually looked uninterested in her in her queen cage, and I was in a big hurry, never a plus.  I assume she was balled or took off on release.  Unfortunately I had my 4 year old granddaughter out here for 3 days and when I saw what appeared to be fighting bees in small clumps under the hive, I could do nothing. A 4 year old is a dangerous thing and a danger to herself...

The other queen I just stole a deep from my biggest hive at high noon the next day, when most of the field force would be gone, again in a bit of a hurry. The bees did not like the smell of the new queen and her escorts at all, so I grabbed a hive tool and scraped some propolis off the edge of the lid, smeared on the queen cage, then stuck the corner of my hive tool in some capped honey and smeared that and the wax on the queen cage.  Needless to say there was plenty of excitement over spilling honey, they forgot about the queen, my cell phone started ringing, and I put her in the frame I had out, frame 4 from the south, facing inward, closed it up and fed them syrup on top.

This is the queen I found between the inner cover and outer cover last weekend, I just checked today, and without an inner cover hiding her from the frames, she is laying, there was uncapped brood.

Last weekend I also newspaper combined the hive that rejected the queen - it was 2 boxes, older bees, no laying worker, so I put one box on top of an inner cover topped by newspaper on each of my established hives (including the one I'd stolen the split from).  And I put the feeder on top of the top box, I use migratory cover feeders.  I did see a spattering of dead bees that had been fighting in front of hive 2. But the hives I combined them with needed the stores, and I felt were strong enough to handle what was rapidly becoming a skeleton work force of older bees, even though they were still doing honey storage and fanning duties.

I did not capture the wandering workers and add them to their comrades the next day.  Rather I gave them a hive body with a small entrance reducer and a frame of honeycomb to put their groceries on, and let them live their lives out there. There are still about half a cup of bees in that hive body, they go out in the morning and come home with the groceries.  No feeder to get them robbed. Darnedest thing I've ever seen.  (these are the water valve cutout bees I did back in July)

I think I have vanilla sugar water in my bee sprayer, and it does help but as long as I am adding nurse bees at high noon I generally do not have a problem
Gypsi

[riverbee]

"Yes, our Perry.  He mentioned his bees reading newspaper yesterday or the day before.  "

..........   too funny lee!  yes he did, but i was sorta lost when you said 'perry's bee's', i was like huh? did perry send you bees?............

thanks for the tec tip!

[Jen]

Lee- "This allowed him to unite the two colonies of bees long enough to more or less equalize the strength of the two colonies.

   I have done the newpaper trick with luck. But I don't see how the added queen excluder betters the idea? scratching head 

[Lburou]

Jen, the excluder keeps the two queens apart. The newspaper is a slow way for the bees to get acquainted but hopefully not aggressive.  The process equalizes the strength of the two colonies.  The colony that was weak can be removed and the originally stronger colony is left in its original location, while the now stronger colony can be relocated and on its own. That side note really was off topic.  HTH 

[Jen]

Oooohhh! I see, so get the hives equalized, keep the queens in place, remove the hive on top which was the weeker one, put it back in it's place, or not....  Brilliant!

[tecumseh]

I have always SUSPECTED Lee that such variation is much about the current status of the age distribution of the bees in the box and naturally those you are trying to add to the box.   ambient temperature I suspect also plays a role.     at least here it appears to me directly adding bees to a box is much more difficult when the bees have some age on them or whenever the temperature is a bit hot.  on the other hand in the spring of the year when the population is younger and the temperature makes 'the girls' move slower combining rarely is a problem.
 

[lazy shooter]

I have always SUSPECTED Lee that such variation is much about the current status of the age distribution of the bees in the box and naturally those you are trying to add to the box.   ambient temperature I suspect also plays a role.     at least here it appears to me directly adding bees to a box is much more difficult when the bees have some age on them or whenever the temperature is a bit hot.  on the other hand in the spring of the year when the population is younger and the temperature makes 'the girls' move slower combining rarely is a problem.

The above makes sense to me.

[lazy shooter]

I have one hive that need a new queen, but I am going to wait until next year.  These bees are so aggressive that I fear they would ball the next queen.  Lborou is going to come assist me with my bees next week and this hot hive is our main goal.  They need to be moved and inspected.  Dang, they're a rough bunch of girls.

[Lburou]

I have one hive that need a new queen, but I am going to wait until next year.  These bees are so aggressive that I fear they would ball the next queen.  Lborou is going to come assist me with my bees next week and this hot hive is our main goal.  They need to be moved and inspected.  Dang, they're a rough bunch of girls.

Off-Topic-  We don't have time left this year, but there may be an easy way to get the requeening done.  Lauri, on another site, says she takes the queen out, waits until they have built queen cells, then introduces a virgin queen.  The virgin queen then kills all the queen cells and you have the queen you want in there.  Sounds good to me, if you can find the queen to begin with.  You didn't mention that I sold you that box of bees, you are full of tact Lazy. 

tec, did I get the description correctly on your equalization/building up process above?

[Lburou]

I have always SUSPECTED Lee that such variation is much about the current status of the age distribution of the bees in the box and naturally those you are trying to add to the box.   ambient temperature I suspect also plays a role.     at least here it appears to me directly adding bees to a box is much more difficult when the bees have some age on them or whenever the temperature is a bit hot.  on the other hand in the spring of the year when the population is younger and the temperature makes 'the girls' move slower combining rarely is a problem.
 

Thanks tec, that makes two, more experienced  than myself, monitoring the age of the bees involved....I'll keep age of the bees and temps in the back of my mind next time -it fits this time for sure.

tec, do you have any more insights about balling the queen?  How often do your queens survive after getting balled?  How many purposes can balling serve, i.e., execution, protection, detaining, etc.?

[Gypsi]

I have always SUSPECTED Lee that such variation is much about the current status of the age distribution of the bees in the box and naturally those you are trying to add to the box.   ambient temperature I suspect also plays a role.     at least here it appears to me directly adding bees to a box is much more difficult when the bees have some age on them or whenever the temperature is a bit hot.  on the other hand in the spring of the year when the population is younger and the temperature makes 'the girls' move slower combining rarely is a problem.
 

ok run this by again, what happens to the virgin?  this can't be a fall requeen procedure, or she wouldn't get mated