Drones

[Greywulff]

A friend of mine mentioned at our club meeting that one of his hives has lots of drones and he was told that it was probably queen less.

Would this be the case at this time of year?

And are these drones he is seeing last years or what. I'm puzzled on this one. The earliest I've seen drones has been late April/May. And I've always though it was in preparation for the swarming season that you first see drones at this time.

So is it weather or pre-swarming that the queens make there mind up as to the right time to produce queens?

Cheers,

[Scadsobees]

Hmm...climate is different, so that makes it hard to say.
Well, if they were from last year the hive would probably have failed, plus they aren't too tolerant of drones in hard times.

I'd guess that the queen failed and was replaced last fall AFTER the drones were gone, so not being fertilized she is now a drone-layer.  Happened to me before.

If he can get a good queen really soon he may save the hive.

Rick

[TwT]

I thank that would depend on your weather and what season you are in, here its early spring and I have a lot of drones in every one of my hives, some more than others, and I even pulled frames of drones from a few hives, queens are in the hives and they frames are full of brood and hive are packed with bee's, I think when hives get so big they naturally produce more drones at certain times that other times of the year, like now swarming season is here already. 

Has your friend looked for the queen? is there eggs and larva in the worker cells and what is the population like (large or small)? he needs to do some investigating himself before he starts replacing queens, she could be failing but he needs to look in the hive to see this then we can help when he tells us about the hive itself. until then it is guesting.

So is it weather or pre-swarming that the queens make there mind up as to the right time to produce queens?

the queen doesn't, the workers do, the queens is like a slave to the hive, when a hive gets filled and no more room and/or population get to large is the main causes of a swarm.

[JP]

I would agree that your friend needs to do a thorough inspection to see what's going on in the hive.

One of our members (the fat beeman, aka Don) does a yearly test using a medium or shallow frame (I don't think it really matters which) that make sense to me but I don't have any data to support this claim. Perhaps others who have data to support this claim can chime in here.

In the brood nest, you pull out one of the center frames and replace it with an empty frame and watch what happens in say a week's time.

If lots of drones in there, according to Don, you have a failing queen, mostly worker brood, all is well, according to Don, who has been keeping bees for quite a long time, I believe 50 yrs plus.

We are in swarm season down here in southeast, Louisiana and have been seeing drones for several weeks, if not a month now.


...JP

[Greywulff]

Thanks for the replies I will past it on.

The weather here is still winterish with southerly winds keeping the temps down around 4/10 degree's don't know what that if in Fahrenheit. Would this still be too cool to do a full inspection or to break the crown board winter seal to put some sugar or candy under. As the norm here is to feed candy or sugar through the crown board slot via an upturned tub. But as I've read here.... They will only break cluster to feed on the warmer days to such a feeder but feed better if its over them on the frames.

[iddee]

4/10 would be fine on a sunny day for a quick look in the top, but I would recommend solid food, not liquid, until the lows were around 10. Then I would wait for close to 15 to pull frames.

[Keith13]

4/10 C = 39/50 F that is pretty chilly especially if you add a wind chill

Keith