When will the Drones Start to Fly

Tommyt · January 15, 2011, 01:50:38 PM

I'm in west central Florida I'd would like to know if there is a certain time the drones start to fly
Is there a calender type time? or is it as the weather warms,200 days after the Harvest Moon :-D
Is there something that sets the Bees off to do the spring breeding
I know some of the guys at the Bee Meeting said swarms start when the Orange Trees begin to Blossom
If that is so, would it make the drones up and about a month earlier?
and for all you Older wiser Beeks maybe you could post the times they start in your Geographical Area
this way all the Green Horns like myself will know when to start trap-outs / splits and maybe try making queens
and set swarm traps.

Thanks
Tommyt

Jim134 · January 15, 2011, 02:14:43 PM

From egg to mating it takes about 6 weeks for a Drone hope this help you out

BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)

specialkayme · January 15, 2011, 03:14:02 PM

Dr. Connor in his BM presentations recommends starting queen rearing when the drone pupae have purple eyes. Just pull one of the capped drone larvae out and look at their eyes.

Dr. Tarpy used to show us how to squeeze the head of an adult drone. If you do it right, and the drone is sexually mature, their insides will pop out much the same way they do during mating. If they arn't sexually mature, they just die (no insides flipping out). You need sexually mature drones in order to have successful mating flights, although you don't need them for swarms to appear (necessarily).

The end result is really geographically dependent. Around here I've been told they start to fly as early as the end of Feb, but I don't see drone larvae in any of my hives till the second week in March at best, so I don't know who's drones are flying in Feb but they arn't mine :)

hardwood · January 15, 2011, 09:49:33 PM

Tommy,
I went through a lot of hives today and, although I did see a few drones, I didn't see breeding numbers. I have scheduled my grafting to start Feb 10 and I expect to have an above average % of failures until late Feb...an education for me I hope.

Drones will definitely be in force and mature here (normally) early March.

Scott

Dave360 · January 15, 2011, 10:00:44 PM

I've heard march in my area
walter kelly in his how to raise queens book says earliest time to rear queens is when blackberries bloom early march my area i am going to try some grafting then

Dave

Michael Bush · January 15, 2011, 11:02:44 PM

I find mid May to be the earliest I can start raising queens and have reliable enough results to be worth the effort, in my location of course.

Tommyt · January 17, 2011, 10:22:54 AM

Quote from: hardwood on January 15, 2011, 09:49:33 PM
Tommy,
I went through a lot of hives today and, although I did see a few drones, I didn't see breeding numbers. I have scheduled my grafting to start Feb 10 and I expect to have an above average % of failures until late Feb...an education for me I hope.

Drones will definitely be in force and mature here (normally) early March.

Scott

Scott
If I split a hive now my chances of the queen Breeding would be "O"
If I'm correct how soon can I do it with hopes of success

Thanks

hardwood · January 17, 2011, 10:51:26 AM

Early March.

Scott

Tommyt · January 17, 2011, 08:23:51 PM

Thanks
They are hammering the maple tree in my front yard

Tom

Yuleluder · January 17, 2011, 10:42:48 PM

One of the three books(Bee Sex essentials or Laidlaw and Pages Queen rearing and bee breeding) I just read stated that you can start grafting 23 days after eggs are found in your drone frames. Both books suggest drones can be made available earlier by providing pollen and syrup to drone mother colonies to stimulate drone production. Of course this has nothing to do with flying weather, but gives one ideas on how to push things along.

Yuleluder · January 17, 2011, 10:58:27 PM

Actually grafting 23 days after eggs are found in drone comb wasn't found in either one of those books. It was from a paper by J. Rhodes on Drone Mother Colonies - Numbers and Positioning. The paper can be found here http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/117459/drone-mother-colonies-number-position.pdf

Michael Bush · January 18, 2011, 03:40:33 AM

You can try whatever you like. I find queen rearing works best, not when you have your first drones, but when the bees are really taking off, which in my location is usually as late as mid May.

BjornBee · January 18, 2011, 08:50:25 AM

Yuleluder,
That would be about right.

That would mean you would have mature drones taking mating flights several days prior to when the queens would start mating. Good timing. ;)