What do you guys think is the Worker to Drone ratio?
Like how many worker bees should i See outside to Drone bees?
10/1? 20/1?
Thanks
Shizzell!!
Mine varies. Last year I had drones coming out about one every five to ten seconds for a couple minutes. This year I have more drones at about he same ratio plus a couple minutes and a whole mess of workers. The ratio I see outside sometimes is 5 workers to one drone to the front covered in incoming and outgoing workers to one drone, when the drones were flying while I was watching. I also cut out all but a couple drone cells last week and checked for mites. I left about 50 in the hive and took out approximately 300 drone cells. The one thing I noticed was that the cells were not all the same age. Cells right next to each other were different ages from old larvae to almost fully developed drone pupae.
Sorry for going off the beaten path but the queen will lay what is needed and as long as there is plenty of room and worker brood I personally won't or wouldn't worry about it. Are you worried about too many or too few drones?
David
Here in March is about 0:1. In mid April it's about 1:99. In mid May it's about 1:5. In mid July it's about 1:6 or 1:7. In August it's more like 1:10. By October it's about 1:99 again. There are vituall non from then until about April again.