Killing Drone Cells?

[FrogPond]

A friend of mine told me that he kills drone cells when he inspects his hives. His reasoning is that they are "mite attractors" and they are not needed by the hive.

Comments anyone?

[thegolfpsycho]

I decapitate drone cells as part of mite monitoring.  As far as trying to eliminate all drone comb, it may be detrimental to the colony.  They raise as many drones as they think they need, and if you eliminate them all, you are creating non-productive work for them.  If they have too many, they give em the boot when the weather changes.

[SherryL]

Well, he's got the part about the mites sort of right.  The mites do go to the drone larva - that's actually a method of treatment. - raising drone brood.  Could it be that's what he was trying to explain?

[Michael Bush]

The latest research I've seen is the bees will raise drones until they reach the threshold they are trying to reach.  They will simply spend resources making more drones if you destroy the ones there.  Once they reach the threshold they will stop rearing drones for a while or just enough to maintain that percentage of drones.  This is regardless of the amount of drone comb in the hive.  Once they have enough they will back off.

I try not to destroy drones unless I'm uncapping a few to look for mites.