What Happens To Drones In The South?

mtnb · September 10, 2015, 11:53:30 AM

I was just sitting around the other day thinking about my drones. My ladies are still keeping some for now but I've seen them evict one so far and have lots of pulled drone larvae in front of my hive. That got me thinking about the drone population in the winter which made me think of KeyLargoBees in the Keys. I guess in the North we don't have drones in the winter but what about in areas that stay pretty warm all year? Do they evict them all also or do they keep a constant supply year round?

KeyLargoBees · September 10, 2015, 12:02:36 PM

Since my hives are both first year hives the drone population has been low to nonexistant all year. Highs are still in the low 90s and we wont break a 50 degree low until mid December so I don't have an answer ;-)

Jeff

BeeMaster2 · September 10, 2015, 12:14:23 PM

Here in North FL, the bees do kick them out. Usually Sept-October time frame. It depends on the flow. We do not see them again until February. This year I am seeing very few drones. My OH has capped drone cells from when they were planning to swarm, I split them. They have been disappearing but I have not seen any drones in the hive yet. I have seen very few in my hives, actually none all summer even though they have added a fair amount of weight on most of the hives. This does have me concerned. My OH queen should have hatched a few days ago so I am really hoping my neighbor beeks have drones in their hives.
Jim

mtnb · September 10, 2015, 12:18:06 PM

lol reall? My hive is a first year hive also and they have created lots of drones since I got them. Maybe it's my foundationless frames? Well, keep me updated. I'll be interested to know..I'm sure someone else from the south could give an answer for now.

mtnb · September 10, 2015, 12:26:35 PM

Sorry, OH, sawdstmakr? So your population does dwindle. I wonder how far south that goes. At some point, does the world population of drones get confined to a certain hemisphere? As in, are there drones in the northern hemisphere during the summer but none in the winter? Are there drones in the southern hemisphere during their summer, our winter, but none in their winter? Do they rebuilt completely each year?...that is just too incredible to think about. lol

Wow, that would have me concerned too about not seeing any drones. Strange. What could cause that? Good luck with your OH queen, whatever that may be. lol

BeeMaster2 · September 10, 2015, 12:37:56 PM

MT,
OH, Observation Hive. The bees only support the drones during times of excess. They will kick them out during the summer if there is no food coming in and not a lot of stores. If the flow continues all winter like it did a couple of years ago, the drones were being produced most of that time. We also had swarms in January.
Jim

KeyLargoBees · September 10, 2015, 02:11:22 PM

I read somewhere that Drones are produced more during swarm season since they are a reproductive necessity and then trail off after that and a "new" hive that is starting from a package that builds up after prime swarm season or a hive that goes through a supercedure and changes queens mid summer or later will NOT produce drones because they are putting all energy into other aspects of hive maintenance and growth. But lord knows that just because its out in a blog/forum post or on an internet site doesnt make it true.....

MB or one of the other senior beeks may have more "practical experience" beyond...."I saw it on the internet" ;-)

BeeMaster2 · September 10, 2015, 05:53:11 PM

Quote from: KeyLargoBees on September 10, 2015, 02:11:22 PM
I read somewhere that Drones are produced more during swarm season since they are a reproductive necessity and then trail off after that and a "new" hive that is starting from a package that builds up after prime swarm season or a hive that goes through a supercedure and changes queens mid summer or later will NOT produce drones because they are putting all energy into other aspects of hive maintenance and growth. But lord knows that just because its out in a blog/forum post or on an internet site doesnt make it true.....

MB or one of the other senior beeks may have more "practical experience" beyond...."I saw it on the internet" ;-)

They do normal produce drones for swarm season. Swarm season is usually during good flows. Most places that is in the spring. Down here it can bee any time of the year. It all depends on the weather and the flow.
One major factor that they have found that triggers drone production is the number of bees in the hive. I forget the number but when its reached, if there is food coming in they will start producing drones. They were not sure how they counted the bees but suspect it may bee the build up of pheromones.
Jim

sc-bee · September 11, 2015, 01:21:22 AM

To the OP we do realize kicked out means die right????

mtnb · September 11, 2015, 08:49:46 AM

Interesting. When you get a package, are drones included? How do they make a package? Just shake off some bees off some frames and whatever falls is the package? The drone count just depends on what was happening on their comb before they were removed? That makes sense about the correlation between a flow and drone production. The bit about the amount of bees is also interesting. I hear many people say their hives are still swarming now. That is very unusual, right? So we can assume many are having a good flow and still plenty of drones? Sawdstmakr, you mentioned seeing capped drone cells so you split them. Are drone cells also a sign of swarming? I don't remember reading anything about that. Can you tell me more?
Sc bees, yes of course I realize kicked out means die. lol My mind was just blown at the thought of such a dwindling drone population yearly.

BeeMaster2 · September 11, 2015, 12:57:14 PM

Package bees, like you mentioned, are shaken from the boxes. Some use a queen excluder which will remove the drones but most do not. That is why you get the drones. This is an artificial swarm. When you catch a real swarm you will also find that it usually has drones in it.
Most of the time bees do not swarm without a good flow. Recently it was found out that sometimes in the fall they will either swarm or abscond and then take over another hive and kill the existing queen.
Having an OH you get to see what is going on in and outside of the hive and what different events lead up to.
Before this OH swarms, they start building a ball of bees, ranging from a softball to a Nerf basketball, that hangs outside of the hive and will not go in unless it gets real cold or in heavy rain. It will have all of the wax full of brood with some drone cells. Sometimes that is only the bottom 2 frames because they never built up during the spring flow. I usually do not see drone larvae until just before swarming because there are only 8 frames total. Not a large hive. This time I saw bees working non stop in a queen cup, drone cells with wet larvae only, no capped drones, and a ball of bees outside the hive that was larger than a softball and only went inside during a real heavy rain.
Apparently the queen never laid an egg in the queen cup this time. Luckily for me, they built a queen cell where I could see it. It was from an egg laid the day that I did the split. I know this because she did not hatch out until the 16th day after the split. So much for the theory that the bees use hatched larvae for emergency cells.
The next time I will wait until the drone cells are capped for a few days before I split this hive or I see the queen cell fully developed. The problem with waiting to see the queen cell fully developed it that there is a lot of area that I cannot see where Q cells could be hiding and get capped without me seeing it.

By the way, Last night I saw my new queen for the first time.

She is all black. The bees act like she is mated, they get out of her way and they touch her but there is no royal court. Her abdomen is still small but it looks larger than a virgin queens abdomen. She was checking cells but I never saw her lay an egg. The bees have been clearing the brood area of the honey that they had filled in as the young bees hatched. I suspect that she is mated but didn't start laying yet or where she was at, the bees had not prepped the cells. I could not find any eggs yesterday.
Jim

mtnb · September 11, 2015, 02:55:27 PM

You are just chalk full of information! Thank you so much for that explanation. Your OH has got to be so fascinating! Your Queen sounds beautiful. Glad you got to see her. There is no royal court? I thought she always had one? When she isn't mated yet, do they ...act mean towards her? lol Man, I realize now I need to buy a book on bee behavior. There is so much to learn. I just purchased The ABCs and XYZs and it seems good, it just came yesterday, but there really is no detail. I feel like I get more out of the old books were the guys just kind of tell their every day lives and just throw in little bits of information here and there that seems irrelevant to them but priceless to a new beekeeper. Any recommendations? Being able to observe the way you do has got to be so informative! I think my husband would kill me. He already thinks I've go e crazy. lol

KeyLargoBees · September 11, 2015, 05:47:53 PM

Jim has me wanting an OH.....I am going to have to discuss placement with my better half and see if we can fit it into the house somehow ;-)

Jeff

BeeMaster2 · September 12, 2015, 01:42:17 AM

Quote from: MT Bee Girl on September 11, 2015, 02:55:27 PM
You are just chalk full of information! Thank you so much for that explanation. Your OH has got to be so fascinating! Your Queen sounds beautiful. Glad you got to see her. There is no royal court? I thought she always had one? When she isn't mated yet, do they ...act mean towards her? lol Man, I realize now I need to buy a book on bee behavior. There is so much to learn. I just purchased The ABCs and XYZs and it seems good, it just came yesterday, but there really is no detail. I feel like I get more out of the old books were the guys just kind of tell their every day lives and just throw in little bits of information here and there that seems irrelevant to them but priceless to a new beekeeper. Any recommendations? Being able to observe the way you do has got to be so informative! I think my husband would kill me. He already thinks I've go e crazy. lol

MT,
If the queen is not mated she is very hard to find because she is treated like just another bee. She walks on them and they walk on her like they do other bees. I saw my first queen several times but I never got a good look at her because the bees were all over her. When I finally got a good look I saw that her wings had Deformed wing virus. She never flew there fore she never mated. I lost that hive to SHB.

Jeff and MT,

I have told this story many times but I think it is worth repeating.
While I was building this hive I was told several times by my wife that thing was not going in her house. I kept building it. I made it out of solid black walnut so that it would look like a nice piece of furniture.
My wife would not give in. We had big party at the farm just as I was finishing it. I put a small hive in it and took it out there. Again I heard the same story but I put it on the table (it was sealed for 2 days with a feeder) to show it off. It was a hit. On the way home my wife asked me where I planned to put it in the house. Now it is her hive. Every time I have to split it she tells me which frames to move and which ones to keep and she is right there working with me.
If you want one, build it, make it look as good as you can and see what happens. I got the plans right here on BeeMaster about six years ago. I think it was something like "watch me build an observation hive". I originally built it as a single layer with three deep frames and slots to bee able to use medium frames. The first hive built up and swarmed very quickly so built new side boards to make it 2-4 medium frames so it has 8 medium frames but you can only see one side of each frame.
Good luck.
Jim

mtnb · September 12, 2015, 11:09:33 PM

What a great story. And conversion. lol I'm not sure about my hubby. He has made it clear from the beginning that I know that this is my thing and he wants no part of it. Other than pay for my habit. Lol! Wish I were kidding. lol I actually just got myself a job so I can buy more bees stuff without having to ask. And extra grocery money of course. (I've been a stay at home, homeschool mom for the last 18 years.) Lol Jeff, does your wife like bees? I think it'd be nice to do it together.

KeyLargoBees · September 13, 2015, 11:07:28 AM

Fiance....and the answer is "sort of" she will stand outside and watch and photograph in a veil and let me do the hands on stuff but I dont see her ever digging into the hives on her own. She has "other considerable talents" outside the realm of beekeeping ;-)

BeeMaster2 · September 13, 2015, 03:08:31 PM

KLB,
Sounds like you should start building your OH.
Jim

swflcpl · September 13, 2015, 11:20:51 PM

Was in 3 hives this morning in sw fl. Saw a few drones walking around on the top of the frames when I popped the lids. Really strong Brazilian pepper flow right now, but still decent room in all 3 first year hives. All 3 are 2 high of 8 frame mediums stuffed with nine 1 1/4in width frames.

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mtnb · September 14, 2015, 07:52:03 PM

Interesting swflcpl. Don't know brazilian oeppers but sounds delicious. I saw a bunch if my bees today on the blooms of my brocolli fliwers. They seemed to really like it. When I looked in today, I still saw about 10-15 drones and only two capoed drone cells. On ghe frames I looked at anyway.

swflcpl · September 14, 2015, 10:47:48 PM

BP not delicious. Just looks like a pepper corn but red and most likely originated in Brazil. Can only be consumed in small quantities. It can cause skin rash in some people if handled. Can cause lung problems if breath burning wood. Extremely hard to control spread (has runners and 10s of thousands of seeds produced). But the bees ( and every other insect) love it and many people love the honey.

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