# Powdered Sugar and the Queen



## Murphy (Jun 7, 2005)

I just did my latest treatment of powdered sugar and had a weird thing happen. I powdered the hives as normal but as I was going away I heard that queenless hive roar from one of the hives.
I opened the hive and the bees had balled the queen and had just about killed her. I took her out, but she was to too far gone. I put the dead queen back in the hive until I have a replacement queen ready as I do not want to wait until the bees make there own queen this late in the year.
My questions are, has anyone had this happen?
The nex question is on Sucrocide; I believe it is a sugar based product, would spraying with a sugar syrup not have the same effect on varroa?
I am bummed at loosing this queen as she was a strong young queen.
Oh well!


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## power napper (Apr 2, 2005)

I have no idea, must be "Murphy's Law". Real intersting phenominum.


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Murphy,

Balling the queen is usually caused by the reaction of the queen to stress. She emits a pheromone under certain conditions.

I suspect the sugar itself, had little to do with the incident. Rather, it was the disturbance to the hive that caused the queen to be lost. New queens are easily disturbed and are sometimes lost this way.

Regards
Dennis


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## Murphy (Jun 7, 2005)

Thanks Dennis,

That sounds like a good explanation for the problem.


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## guatebee (Nov 15, 2004)

Could there be any chance your sugar powder smelled funny and bees just got so confused they deleted the queen?
Tell us about the results of podewering against varroa. This is what you were after isn`t it? Queen balling is truly a loss but I`m sure accidents like that are not the rule.


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