many drones

[PeeVee]

Yesterday afternoon I was in the bee yard around  5:00. The oldest hive had many drones coming in for a landing. And I do mean a lot :?

The other hives seemed to have the usual worker flights only.

Any ideas why there would be so many drones at that hive?

One other question (maybe two)...
   When drones fly out to a congregation area, how do they know where to go? and then how do the virgin queens know where the drones are?

[deknow]

does the hive in question have queen cells and/or virgin queens present?

deknow

[Kathyp]

probably be a good idea to look inside and see what's going on.  there was a post a bit back and some of us found that we had more than the usual number of drones this year.  don't know why.  mine seem to have backed off on drone production, but it was quite high early in the year.

[PeeVee]

Yeah, I'll be going in tomorrow or Monday. Last week everything seemed normal inside.

Interestingly I noticed the drones being escorted out of some hives a while ago, as did some others who have posted here.

[lisascenic]

I do find that early evening seems to be Drone O'Clock.

Maybe they're just back from spending the day at the bar.