Hello everyone!
Here is the situation: my husband and I performed a (successful) removal on New Year's Day, we located the queen and placed her in a plastic catcher and secured her in the hive box. Returned that night and removed hive, all the bees were inside and we even saw them begin to march in before we left earlier that day. We place them in a new location, with the queen still secured in the catcher in the hive. We returned today (3 days later) to release the queen onto a frame. A few workers had accumulated inside the clip and all seemed normal. However, upon releasing her the bees began to ball around her aggressively. We managed to re-catch her, and after a few minutes were able to remove most of the workers who were caught inside with her. We went through the frames looking for a second queen on any queen cells and none were found. My husband and I have done multiple removals in this way; clipping the queen, securing her inside the hive, then releasing her some time after the hive was relocated. We are stumped as to why the colony would have behaved this way towards her. Any thoughts ???? Thanks for your help in advance !!! :)