# Why cant queen get stung in queen cage if she can receive food



## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

From what I've seen, the workers will kill an intruder queen by balling her. They don't seem to do this when she is in a cage. It's the virgin queen that might hunt down a mated queen in an introduction cage, but the queen can still move around in the cage to avoid whomever she doesn't want to interact with. (releasing that queen into the hive when there is a virgin running around will result in the mated queen being stung by the more agile virgin)


----------



## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

Heat! that is how the rank and file of a hive kill a queen. Not by stings. Only a virgin queen will kill via sting. A mated queen leaves queen management to the workers. Who ball a queen holding her tightly and vibrating as they do in a winter cluster. Raising the temperature to a point that it is deadly to the queen.


----------



## oldspice (Aug 20, 2016)

Wow ok haha very good to know, thanks!


----------



## m0dem (May 14, 2016)

I've seen what looks like worker bees trying to sting a foreign mated queen. It looked a lot like when they try to sting me!


----------



## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

This summer I happened to be inspecting a hive and it was balling their own queen. I was suspicious about the fertility of that one and she'd been laying a lot of drones. Guess the bees were not liking her as well. I'd looked all thru the hive searching for the queen and got to the last frame and noted this funny gob of bees on the bottom of it. They sort of dropped off into the box and stayed so me being curious started poking around and sure enough there was a queen in there. One bee was trying really hard to sting her and yep...got her. I wasn't sure or could not believe what I'd seen so I attempted rescue by bringing her into the house and caging her. Next morning she was pushing up daisies. X's in her eyes.


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

If a queen cage is 7/8" deep below the screen, they can't get her. She just stays down under the screen, out of reach. If she can lay eggs, her pheromone level comes up, and they recognize her as a laying queen, not as a foreign bee. That's when they stop balling her and the attendant workers begin feeding her when she comes up to the screen.

The best design is the Laidlaw queen introduction cage. It is a 5" x 7" rectangle of wood, 7/8" deep. It has a rim of sheet metal running around the inside perimeter that protrudes 3/8" below the bottom of the wooden rectangle, and #8 hardware cloth over the top of the rectangle.

Clear off a nice flat comb frame with hatching brood, a small amount of open honey and pollen on it. Place the queen the comb, and cover her with the Laidlaw cage, pressing down until the sheet metal strip bottoms out on the top of the comb.

There is no candy release plug in the Laidlaw cage. The beekeeper releases the queen *AFTER* he / she sees that the bees are no longer balling the queen, no sooner.


----------



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

The biggest problem with aggressive bees and a queen in a cage is them pulling at her feet and damaging them. The JZBZ cage is designed to prevent this.


----------

