Newly marked Q being balled

[CraBee 1,748]

I marked a newly mated Q in a mating nuc earlier today, blew the paint several times, and dropped her back onto the frame.  In a short time there was a cluster of bees forming around her and gripping onto her.  I extracted her and tried again a few minutes later, and had the same result.  I then dropped her into a cage on top of the frames for about an hour and then released her - same result as earlier.  I've never had this happen before and while it is easy enough to remove her wonder if anyone else has had this happen before?  and if so how you resolved it?

[Dave Black 3,520]

Did she have sealed brood?

I've just re caged with candy and no escorts. Time is the only healer. If you had or could make a press-in cage cage her on emerging brood. 

[CraBee 1,748]

46 minutes ago, Dave Black said:

Did she have sealed brood?

I've just re caged with candy and no escorts. Time is the only healer. If you had or could make a press-in cage cage her on emerging brood. 

 

I think she has only mated in the last few days, I saw eggs but no young larvae, and I don't think there is much sealed brood left in the hive.  

I'll take a look in the morning and see how they are behaving towards her but otherwise I will probably leave her in cage and take her out with me tomorrow to find a hive that better appreciates her :--)  That's what was ultimately going to happen with her anyway.

Edited October 29, 2017 by CraBee
fomatting

[Dave Black 3,520]

There has to be a good reason for marking before she has sealed brood, and usually there isn't one.

[CraBee 1,748]

2 minutes ago, Dave Black said:

There has to be a good reason for marking before she has sealed brood, and usually there isn't one.

 

Yes I take your point.

[john berry 5,636]

I was showing some new beekeepers through some hives today and one of the hives I checked had a beautiful new Queen with sealed brood which is fine. Another hive only had a few eggs and my reaction when seeing a hive like that is to immediately and quietly put the hive back together because disturbing newly mated Queen's before they have sealed brood leads to a percentage of fatalities. I don't know why but it was something I was taught over 40 years ago and I've seen enough to believe it has some validity.

[AdamD 338]

As Dave says, I just re-cage with candy and leave them alone. I don't usually mark for a few weeks - young queens are very skittish and can try to fly too.

[kaihoka 2,975]

10 hours ago, john berry said:

I was showing some new beekeepers through some hives today and one of the hives I checked had a beautiful new Queen with sealed brood which is fine. Another hive only had a few eggs and my reaction when seeing a hive like that is to immediately and quietly put the hive back together because disturbing newly mated Queen's before they have sealed brood leads to a percentage of fatalities. I don't know why but it was something I was taught over 40 years ago and I've seen enough to believe it has some validity.

I have to take my nucs an hours drive away to mate.

I have taken capped cells, two week old virgins who wouldn't mate here and a frame with uncapped cells on it .

The cells came to nothing and I have been told that the virgin Will most likely get lost orienting to a new place.

The capped cell hatched and mated and I brought her back when I saw eggs.

Should I have left her there till she had capped brood.

Is a capped cell the best option for making a nuc and moving it .?

[Qkrwogud 120]

I've had the same thing happen recently, I checked back after a week and found she was doing fine.

Someone else here commented they are probably not used to the paint smell and was uncertain about the queen. Could also be them trying to clean her up if the paint is still fresh(I've had them do this before)

[Scutellator 52]

On 29.10.2017 г. at 5:59 AM, CraBee said:

I marked a newly mated Q in a mating nuc earlier today, blew the paint several times, and dropped her back onto the frame.  In a short time there was a cluster of bees forming around her and gripping onto her. 

The fact that the queen is mated and laying is not equal to fully sexually mature queen. Up to 3 weeks after the mating the estrogen levels are still rising ( similar to puberty in humans) and the egg laying rate gradually increases.

The newly mated queens are still nervous and they are the ones who initiate the fight. Sometimes upon harvesting they fall into a cataleptic shock. Never seen a "tested" queen or virgin to do that.

 

There was an Aussie paper investigating the correlation between the age of the queen upon harvesting and the introduction success rate. Somehow got covered in dust.

[Philbee 4,675]

Yep, I learned the hard way never to open a mating nuc of a newly mated Queen, mark her and close the nuc without caging.

Next time you go back to cage her she will likely be gone.

[kaihoka 2,975]

22 hours ago, Philbee said:

Yep, I learned the hard way never to open a mating nuc of a newly mated Queen, mark her and close the nuc without caging.

Next time you go back to cage her she will likely be gone.

So how do you go about checking if a queen has mated and is laying if you can not open the nuc to see ?

I want to bring my nucs back and combine with hive.

The queens mated a week ago . 

Should I combine the same day I move them or leave them a week .

Edited November 1, 2017 by kaihoka

[CraBee 1,748]

29 minutes ago, kaihoka said:

So how do you go about checking if a queen has mated and is laying if you can not open the nuc to see ?

I want to bring my nucs back and combine with hive.

The queens mated a week ago . 

Should I combine the same day I move them or leave them a week .

 

I think philbee is meaning that the Q needs to be left longer eg three weeks from mating before marking her.

If you move them back I would combine them the same day.

[Philbee 4,675]

I mean that it is a mistake to mark a newly mated young Queen then release her back into the hive.

I found this out when Id peek into a nuc to see if the Queen had mated and mark her so as to make the job of catching her next time for caging easier.

I have lost more Queens this way than by opening a hive and finding a Virgin, which is something I do regularly and very rarely lose one.

50 minutes ago, kaihoka said:

Should I combine the same day I move them or leave them a week .

I dont Know, 

Its not something Ive ever done

 

[kaihoka 2,975]

17 minutes ago, CraBee said:

 

I think philbee is meaning that the Q needs to be left longer eg three weeks from mating before marking her.

If you move them back I would combine them the same day.

She is in a nuc and I was planning to remove the frame of eggs and cells in the main hive.

I shall put the nuc in a FD box and combine the hive.

I am anxious to avoid the disaster that happened with the last nuc I brought back .

[CraBee 1,748]

2 minutes ago, kaihoka said:

She is in a nuc and I was planning to remove the frame of eggs and cells in the main hive.

I shall put the nuc in a FD box and combine the hive.

I am anxious to avoid the disaster that happened with the last nuc I brought back .

 

I've re-queened quite a few hives with nucs.  Something like this should work:

-  Take the nuc back home and combine same day (then the nuc bees don't have to re-orient themselves to a new location twice),

-  Remove the Q from the hive,

-  Generally I will only re-Queen it this way if there are more bees in the nuc than the hive (as I don't want the hive bees to kill the new Queen),

-  Spray air freshener or deodorant over the hive frames and through hive entrance and into the nuc,

-  Remove some hive frames,  I usually place all of the nuc frames on one side of the hive and try to make sure the Q is on either of the two frames nearest to the side of the box,

(I suppose another (safer) way to do this would be to cage the Q and use a marshmallow release, although I have not done it like this.

-  Other thing is if you are using say a two box hive I always have the nuc and Q on frames on the top box,

-  Spray again on combined hive,

-  This approach has always worked for me...no Q losses.

[kaihoka 2,975]

24 minutes ago, CraBee said:

 

I've re-queened quite a few hives with nucs.  Something like this should work:

-  Take the nuc back home and combine same day (then the nuc bees don't have to re-orient themselves to a new location twice),

-  Remove the Q from the hive,

-  Generally I will only re-Queen it this way if there are more bees in the nuc than the hive (as I don't want the hive bees to kill the new Queen),

-  Spray air freshener or deodorant over the hive frames and through hive entrance and into the nuc,

-  Remove some hive frames,  I usually place all of the nuc frames on one side of the hive and try to make sure the Q is on either of the two frames nearest to the side of the box,

(I suppose another (safer) way to do this would be to cage the Q and use a marshmallow release, although I have not done it like this.

-  Other thing is if you are using say a two box hive I always have the nuc and Q on frames on the top box,

-  Spray again on combined hive,

-  This approach has always worked for me...no Q losses.

So you would not put the nuc frames in a box

Put box on top of the other hive on top of newspaper and queen excluder and spray  air freshener around .

 

[CraBee 1,748]

Yes take the nuc frames and put them in a box and that box would be on top.

[kaihoka 2,975]

9 hours ago, CraBee said:

Yes take the nuc frames and put them in a box and that box would be on top.

Thanks 

With a mega rata flow coming early I am keen to combine all my splits and requeen  And not stuff up .

I normally have more time to recover from a mistake.

I saw bees in early rata yesterday. 

This would normally not happen till 1st of Jan  not 1st of Nov !!