Drones, drones, drones!

[Barry]

Has anyone else seen copious amounts of drones in their hives this year? I've never had so many drones before. I'll pull out a frame and 85% of the bees will be drones. I've always seen drones mixed in well with the other bees, but this year I'm finding the guys are hanging out together. Here's a typical 'drone' frame.



Yes, these are from hives that are queen right.

[NasalSponge]

Yikes, I have noticed many more this year but not that much.... That queen really wants to spread her genes.

[Mike Gillmore]

Barry,

I'm seeing a much higher percentage of drones than normal this spring as well. In my case it coincided with colonies that were preparing to swarm and I attributed it to that. Maybe there's something else going on.

I was at one of my yards this past Sunday checking on some swarm nucs. At about 3:30, drones began suddenly returning to the hives in very high numbers. This happened with all the colonies simultaneously. In the past I've noticed higher numbers of drones returning to their hives at certain times of the day, but I've never seen this many before. They were covering the front of the boxes and blocking up the entrance, a total bottleneck. I don't know what's happening or why, I just know this is very unusual.

[Michael Palmer]

I shake a lot of bees out of brood nests, and through a queen excluder, to grow queen cells. In the central combs with brood, drones are in low numbers, and evenly mixed in with workers. On the outside combs, the drones are like the comb you show. I don't bother shaking the outside two combs because the drones clog up my excluder, making it hard to fine the queen.

[beeware10]

bees can't raise a lot of drones without alot of drone comb. look at your comb quality?

[Barry]

Michael -

This comb was an outside frame. I see the pattern you describe. Have always just seen drones mixed in. I split all my hives this year so wonder if that plays into it. They prepared to swarm but then got split. I'll look closer at the combs, but I don't recall seeing an excessive amount of drone comb.

[Arkansas Beekeeper]

I noticed the same thing on a trap out.. The 9,10 frame on bottom box was covered with drones. I was thinking the queen was lost inside of the wall.

[Barry]

This frame came out of a four frame nuc that I split off another hive. There were so many drones in this hive, I just about shook all the bees off onto the ground and take the hive away. It's near impossible to see a queen with that many drones. I never saw one and figured this hive was hopeless. The frame that had the swarm cells on it were open, but no queen and no eggs. Decided to take it home with me and give it to my daughter to mess around with. See if she wanted to try and get them to raise another queen. While we were transferring the frames into her hive body, I spotted a queen going around the bottom bar. The bees are always a step ahead of me!

[jim lyon]

I have to believe it is a result of the exceptional spring conditions you apparently had over there. Are there more or less drones in your small cell hives?

[Maddox65804]

I am noticing the same thing. There are a few of my hives that have an unusually large number of drones in them. More than I have ever noticed in the past.

Also started a trap out this week (using Cleo's design of course), there were thousands of drones around the opening. Now obviously, I can't see inside of the tree, or know if she is a drone layer, but the sheer number of drones was not something I have seen before.

I'd love to hear some theories on this unusual occurence.

[the doc]

i have a lot of drones this year but i havent been doing this long enough to say its more than average, but its a lot

[max2]

"bees can't raise a lot of drones without alot of drone comb. look at your comb quality? "
true.
The only time I had so many drones in a hive was when I moved a very old and neglected hive. I replaced all the frames over a matter of months.
I wonder if foundations have been used in these frames?

[Cleo C. Hogan Jr]

Spoke at the Meade County Bee Club tonight and the first question was, "Have you noticed more drones this year than normal." No I haven't, but I have had a half dozen calls from people with gross overpopulation of drones. Unfortunately I don't have a theory. My first attack if I had this problem would be to remove the combs with excessive drone cells, and excessive drones. I look for this problem to taper off soon, (at least in Kentucky) as the honey flow dwindles, and the primary swarm season begins to ebb.

[winevines]

Being a bit further South than most of you, I can share that many of us also saw greater number of drones. Early Spring was intense, with an intense early flow that we generally do not get. More experienced beekeepers are saying this year is the most intense swarming they have seen in 20 years. Many of us have had nearly everything we have swarm, even splits. In my case, nearly 25 colonies and only 1 queen from last year remaining as far as I can tell - I am far from alone in this situation this year. Early supering, reversing, many of the tricks were conducted in the apiaries to no avail. At least we raised a lot of queens off of cells. And all those drones plus the warm winter has also brought high mite loads this Spring so be clued in to that too.

[mike haney]

here in northwestern KY i too am overrun with drones. my hives are packed with bees so its hard to give a percentage but it sure looks like more than 25% drones. on the plus side every super i have is full so i'll be doing an early extraction this weekend to empty some.
wish i had this problem every year!

[hoodswoods]

maybe they cranked-up preparing for all the swarms reported. that photo you have Barry is just crazy. almost all brood comb outside the main cluster is drone for me also and everywhere they can put it. I'm running some green drone comb that is ready to be pulled - I'll be curious.

[Barry]

I wonder if foundations have been used in these frames?

I don't do foundationless, so yes, foundation in all frames. As you can see in the photo, mostly worker cells, some drone.

[max2]

I don't do foundationless, so yes, foundation in all frames. As you can see in the photo, mostly worker cells, some drone.

I wonder what the explanation is? I read " 25% " drones! There must be 25% drone brood = 25% drone cells. With foundations I have no idea how this is possible?Any clues?

[Barry]

I think the queens continually laid in the drone come with the unusually warm weather we had very early. In a normal year a queen will lay in the drone cells up to a point and then you'll see it get filled with honey as it's usually on the periphery of the worker cells. Brood pattern size could have easily been much larger from early on with the warm weather. That's my guess.

[Mike Gillmore]

I noticed about a month ago on my frames with capped honey that the bees were ignoring worker size cells and intentionally emptying capped drone size cells, which typically run across the top and down the sides of my natural comb frames. In the brood nest as well, they were backfilling worker cells with nectar and raising drones in every large cell they could find. I know this is typical springtime and swarm prep behavior, but this was the most dramatic I've ever seen in regards to raising drones. This will be an interesting summer.