Fascinating up-close footage showing how honey bees go about killing a queen bee has been scaring up a storm on social media.
Earlier this month, Florida beekeeper Elisha Bixler shared a dramatic video of “queen balling” to her TikTok account @howsyourdayhoney3. The video has already been watched over 15 million times.
“Queen balling” refers to the terrifying process by which bees kill off their queen. They do this by forming a tight ball around the queen and vibrating their wings to turn up their body temperature, suffocating her in the process. At the same time, the bees continue to bite and sting at the queen. It’s a fate every bit as terrifying as it sounds, with Bixler capturing an example of “queen balling” at close quarters in the palm of her hand.
“I was shocked when I caught this on camera,” Bixler says in the clip. In addition, her followers were equally stunned by what they were witnessing. “New level of anxiety unlocked,” one TikTok user wrote while another user commented: “Just the sound alone has me squirming.”
Others were stunned at Bixler’s ability to stay so calm while holding a ball of bees. “Did you just touch a ball of bees?” one TikTok user asked, with another user writing: “I’m afraid for your right hand now.”
Though stings from bees, hornets or wasps may be unpleasant, they post a relatively small threat to our overall well-being.
According to data collected from 2000 to 2017 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were a total of 1,109 deaths from hornet, wasp, and bee stings. That equates to an annual average of 62 deaths. Of this number, around 80 percent of the deaths were among males.
Not that Bixler is overly concerned about being stung. “I’ve been around bees for 8 years and worked with them closely and I understand their behavior,” she told Newsweek. “There are times when I would never approach a hive or group of bees without proper protection. In this case I took a risk and picked up the ball of bees.”
howsyourdayhoney3
Bixler works as a beekeeper out of St. Petersburg, Florida. Through her business, How’s Your Day Honey, she rescues honey bees from residential, commercial, and recreational areas in the region and also cares for honey bees.
Speaking on the viral video, she describes queen balling as one of the “most brutal” things that can happen among bees.
“The queen bee is the mother to all of the bees in her colony,” Bixler said. “She is cared for by her daughters all of her life. There are times when the queen needs to be dethroned and queen balling is the way honey bees do that. The queen may need to be dethroned because she loses her ability to lay eggs, pheromones weaken, or she is an imposter from another hive. Although she is the queen, her daughters make all of the decisions in the running and health of the hive.”
Bixler reckons she has witnessed queen balling first hand at least “10 times” to date. However, on this occasion there was no sting in the tail, with Bixler intervening to rescue the queen.
“I was interested in her behavior and wanted to figure out what was going on inside the ball,” she said. “As I began to remove the bees from the ball her piping and cries for help spurred me to come to her aid and eventually find her a new colony and home. She is currently laying eggs and building a hive in a honey producing apiary.”
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