THOUSAND ANSWERS ]71 



tance, for if hot smoke is thrown on the ball the bees will sting 

 her. 



Q. What should I have done when I saw the bees balling 

 the queen, other than I did— pour a little warm syrup on them 

 and close the hive? Honey was corning in fairly well, and I did 

 not use smoke— jnst a whiflf over the tops of the frames. 



A. You did the right thing. When bees ball their own queen, 

 if the hive be quickly and quietly closed, rarely does any trouble 

 follow. If you want to be so careful as to guard against the rare 

 case that sometimes happens, you can cage the queen and let the 

 bees liberate her by eating out a plug of candy. 



Q. Last summer I had six swarms come out and go away to- 

 gether (undipped queens), and some of the queens were balled 

 and killed. What can one do to separate them? 



A. You can pick out each ball, put it in a hive, and then 

 distribute to each ball its proportion of bees; for a queen is not 

 likely to be injured in a ball until you have time to make the dis- 

 tribution. 



Q. I lost several queens last season when they returned from 

 their wedding flight. The bees balled them. I have found them 

 balled when they were not over a week old. When I took some 

 bees and a virgin queen and made a nucleus, the first queen would 

 be mated all right. It was the second queen that got killed. Can 

 you tell me why the bees killed the queens? 



A. It is said that the bees attack the queen because she 

 has acquired a strange scent. But there may be some question 

 whether in returning from her wedding-flight she is likely to be 

 killed by her own bees if the beekeeper himself does not meddle. 

 Bees sometimes ball their old laying queen, and when I have 

 found them doing so, I have always made it a rule to close the 

 hive as quickly and quietly as possible, leaving the bees entirely 

 to their own devices, and on looking in the hive a few days later 

 everything would be found all right. If you try to rescue the 

 queen from the balling bees, you stand a pretty good chance of 

 having her killed. Why may it not be the same way when bees 

 ball a queen that has just mated? 



Queens, Buying. — Q. Where can I get a first-class Italian 

 queen, free of disease? 



A. In the proper season there are always found in the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal, advertisements of those who have queens for 

 sale, and these may be relied upon as free from disease. A man 

 who would send out a queen from diseased stock would steal. 



