Who has drone brood or flying drones?

[BEES4U]

I removed about one pound of sealed natural drone comb in a feeder rim today, 3/3/08 before I supered the colony with drawn comb and Pierco drone comb foundation for queen mating.
The hive has been on full feed with my pollen patties and Mann Lake 15% pollen patties.
It's time to dust off the grafting needles, sanitize them and double check my royal jelly supplies.
Regards,
Ernie
Lucas

[Velbert]

Checked some divides that I made up August of 2007 they had from 3-5 frames of brood No feeding prior to checking did feed a division feeder full when I checked them 2/28/08 THEY HAD SEVERAL HATCHED DRONES THEY HAVE BEEN BRING IN POLLEN THE PAST 3 WEEKS ON THE FEW DAYS THAT WAS WARM ENOUGH TO FLY AND WORK

[tecumseh]

I have had drones flying here since feb 28. I have also discovered two hives loaded down with cells and preparing to swarm (at some date since I have no idea of the cells age).

[odfrank]

Had drones weeks ago, no feeding, maybe all winter, who knows....

[Beemaninsa]

Few drones, good drone brood 3 days ago. Light feed now and sub pollen over winter. South Texas brush country. Severe drought.

[Gene Weitzel]

Saw drone brood in several hives two weeks ago. This last weekend, had one hive with drones on the combs and several queen cells (one sealed and a couple open w/larvae). Looked like supercedure in progress since there was lots of "popped up" drone brood mixed in with the worker brood. Also noticed a few cells with "twin eggs". The brood pattern was pretty solid, but not quite up to snuff, guess mama is wearing out.

[WVbeekeeper]

I had sealed drone brood Feb 25. From the looks of the frame most of the drones have emerged. The drone brood is in the lower left hand quandrant of the frame.

http://bp1.blogger.com/_ZpvYlup3cFc/R8WkdUhZ-lI/AAAAAAAAAM0/W7kMlevwjQ8/s1600-h/IMG_2572.JPG

I have some other colonies with drone brood but the picture above is of a strong colony which I used as a donor for Strengthening a Weak Colony (http://wvbeekeeper.blogspot.com/2008/02/strengthening-weak-colony.html).

[beemandan]

Loads here. Lots of capped drone cells. Many emerged already in the hive. I haven't noticed any flying yet but I'm pretty sure they are. I haven't found any swarm cells yet but I think within the next couple of weeks we're going to be in the beginning of swarm season here.

[Joseph Clemens]

Lots of mature, flying drones, drone brood.

[tecumseh]

just a bit of a update...

I reviewed at my last years notes and had drones flying here last year on exactly the same date feb 28.

quite evidently the girls are better at paying attention to the calendar than some of us...

[Joseph Clemens]

The hives in my home yard have developed nice drone populations -- they can be seen flying every afternoon once it warms up over 60F. Several days this past week have been over 80F, but most days the high only reaches between 65-70F.

It's a good thing too, because one other hive where the queen had become a weak layer, is being replaced by her workers (many emergency queen cells and she is now missing) and the accumulative drone horde should provide a good chance for her replacement to mate well and become an excellent queen.

[Beaches' Bee-Haven Apiary]

Beginning of March my hives were really turning out their drones. I think they'v been producing drones since Feb, but it was hard to tell, sinch 2 of my 4 hive's queens were running out.:(

-Nathanael:cool:

[BEES4U]

We had a nice calm warm day today.
It's 60 degrees F at 7:01 PM and todays high was 75 degrees F.
I saw some of the first 2008 drones flying at 1:30 PM.
I also saw about 4" x 8" of total sealed drone brood.
I put in some Pierco drone cell frames for flooding the mating zone.
No chemicals used in the drone mothers so the drones will be strong and healthy.
I plan making my first grafting this Saturday as the drones will be old enough to mate with new 2008 virgin queens.
Regards,
Ernie
Lucas Apiaries

[tecumseh]

nice looking queen WVbeekeeper... very nice. I do like this time of year when the first drones begin to show... even if you don't see the queen directly the drones tell you a lot about the kind of queen you have in the hive.

I would suggest that lots of drones in a hive either late in the season or very early in the season is telling you in some fairly indirect way that something ain't quite right in those hives.

[WVbeekeeper]

nice looking queen WVbeekeeper... very nice. I do like this time of year when the first drones begin to show... even if you don't see the queen directly the drones tell you a lot about the kind of queen you have in the hive.

I would suggest that lots of drones in a hive either late in the season or very early in the season is telling you in some fairly indirect way that something ain't quite right in those hives.

Thanks. I needed some early drones to mate with some early queens. I have few other colonies that had some drone brood at the same time as this one. The large overwintered colonies seem a little more interested in swarming than building comb to increase the size of their colony so I'll definitely need some queens to head up some nucs around the first of April. I'll be ordering some queen rearing supplies today for grafting so I'll be sure to have them on hand in a couple weeks. I'll probably be grafting the first batch of queens for the year on Easter Day. I'll be raising enough to have some unmated ferals as well as daughters from the Italian in the picture to get rid of if anyone is interested.
http://bp1.blogger.com/_ZpvYlup3cFc/R8WkdUhZ-lI/AAAAAAAAAM0/W7kMlevwjQ8/s1600-h/IMG_2572.JPG

[WVbeekeeper]

:) :) :) :)

[Bizzybee]

Air is full of em!

[BGhoney]

Just in them today, got lots of drone comb and flyers. Washington st:D
Does anyone know how long a drone has to mature before he can mate? I've never come across the time frame.

[BEES4U]

14 days old from the time that they emerge.
Regards,
Ernie
Lucas Apiaries

[sierrabees]

The only drone brood I have seen was today. Opened a hive that had been strong two weeks ago with bees on most frames of two 8 fr deeps. It had only a handfull of bees, a marked queen, and a spot of brood and eggs you could cover with a playing card. The next hive I opened had two 8 fr deeps full of bees but the only brood present was drone brood and there were several normal looking drones on the frame. I found no evidence of a laying queen in this hive. Most of the capped drone brood were in drone cells but I found a few worker cells with drone cappings. I am assuming that the queen became a drone layer suddenly and either died or was done away with too late for them to make a new queen because I could find no queen cells in any stage of developement, no worker cells, and no evidence of a torn down queen cell. I combined the weak hive with the queen in it with the strong queenless hive, assuming that even if they did not accept the new queen they could make a queen from the small amount of eggs present and I will be able to find the queen cells next week. If they somehow have a virgin queen that I missed, then I will know in a month or so if there is an unmarked queen in the hive and no queens were started from the brood given.

All of my other hives (what is left of them) have no drones that I have seen.

The only nice thing about losing most of your hives is that you get to pay more attention to the ones that are left. Life gives you lemons, make lemonaid.

[ScadsOBees]

Hmmm...I don't even have worker bees flying yet :mad:

I suppose that is fine. I'd rather not have the fruit trees freeze again....

[bluegrass]

I have capped drone cells present in several hives, no drones yet though.

[JohnBeeMan]

I have not seen any flying yet. However, on last Friday's inspection I saw lots of capped drone brood and a few drones running around on comb. A good thing since one hive had started 3 supercedure queen cells.