I happened to have my phone on me and thought to take a picture of it. For those who have never seen a queen being balled this is what it looks like. I was going through mating nucs and they are all stacked up on top of one another. When you unstack them to look at them the returning bees often go into the wrong nuc and as a result often ball the queen. They usually don't damage her but sometimes they do. This is what it looks like. Usually the best thing to do is hit them with some smoke (not too hot, as you don't want a flame thrower) and get them to break up. Sometimes I scoop them up in my hand and try to pull them apart gently. Then I usually try to get the queen in a cage until things settle down. Anyway, I thought I'd share the picture.
I saw this frenzy going on and turned the cover over to block the entrance. They were doing this same thing before I blocked it. They would pile up until they would fall in clumps. I slowed it down to try to see it better.
I consider propolizing a good trait for bees (maybe not for the beekeeper). Here is a mating nuc I found this year. The drilled hole is about 5/8". The reduced hole is about 5/16".
It wasn't working right and then it would and then it wouldn't. This is what I found. It couldn't get out, so I left it and used another smoker. It was finally out after two days.
We needed to feed because of a dearth and we still needed to finish building up the 8 frame nucs for winter. We bought 50 six gallon buckets and bought 3,450 pounds of sugar in 25 lb bags. We worked out the maximum strength we could do with hot water from my tap (140 F) and not have it crystallize out. We put one 25 pound bag in each bucket with a heaping tablespoon of ascorbic acid, then 18 pints of water and stir it with a five gallon paint stirrer. After 10 to 30 minutes we stir it again.
