Thousand answers 171 
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 coming in fairly well, and I did 
not use smoke — just a whiff 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 (unclipped 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 ihat 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 hi\fe 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. 
