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I was watching my hives a few hours before sunset and one hive had at least 15 drones coming and going from the hive. None of the other hives are spitting out drones like this. Needless to say it worried me and made me wonder if this is normal. As a side note this is my first year in beekeeping.
Hehe. 15. That's nothing. No worries on that. You should come to see them as a normal part of a healthy colony.
If you've got new colonies, they seem to try to get a good foraging force going before they get to putting out many drones. I look at the drone numbers increasing as a sign that the bees are developing as they want to, and that things are going well. I believe that I've read a normal colony will raise between 10 and 20 percent drones...
...so expect to see thousands over time...
Adam
There's research around that sets the preferred drone population for a colony at around 17%. There's also research around that states that 60% of the adult drones in a hive at any given time did not originate from that hive's genetics - they are visitors from other hives.
don't be worried by seeing a few adult drones about - it's a good thing.
Now if you are going through your brood comb and, say, half of the brood being reared is drone... that's an indicator of potential queen issues..
Thank goodness, I just added the 2nd deep supers to five of my hives. The colony that's making the drones is one of the strongest hives I have at the time. I just got worried and thought it might be a sign of bad things to come (swarming). Thanks for the feedback :)
*lol* well, yeah, it could be that too.. but, again, 15 is nothing in the grand scheme. It's what's going on on the inside that matters.Quote:
Originally Posted by rwurster