got home from work tonight and went and looked at the hive I have, and I noticed probably 50 drones in the grass in front of the hive. They are all alive and buzzing, their wings look normal, but they can't seem to fly. Any ideas. I've been beekeeping for a few years now, and this hive wintered over successfully and seems really strong.
Boys will be boys. There is no telling what they were up too. Did you check if there was a chick in the pile?
no they are not in a group, just about 50 of the big guys crawling in the grass. I'm hoping that this is not an indication of a pending swarm. I'll have to get into the hive tonight, its been a few weeks.
I had that around one of my hives a couple weeks ago and I got to looking and found a queen on the ground among them. I picked her up and put her in the hive and she went in and disapeared among the other bees on the landing board.
Primary swarm season has probably just ended for you and the drones are no longer needed in such great numbers.
Scott
Thanks for the info. Hope you guys are right, although my Dad just had one of his hives swarm yesterday. They only went about 40 feet and landed in a very small tree, he was able to rehive them almost immediately.