[Anaphoria]

So, last time I was worried about too much pollen... seams like they took care of that, lots more space for larva and lots of eggs and little ones.

Now, it would seam that the bees are opening up some of the drone brood. And possibly... eating it? (They have lots of pollen, about three bars of honey, and capped stores at the top of all brood bars.) It looked like they were trying to eat out of the roughly uncapped cells similar to the honey eating they do when you open them up.

Anyway, I had quite a few bars (top bar hive) and a few 'patches' with drone brood. It looks like the cap is being chewed off, and the little pupae exposed. Some of them I couldn't see more than white, but it sure seamed like some had eyes on them. Some of the surrounding capped cells were emerging. Perhaps these are in the process of being capped? (but since the neighboring cell is hatching, and in some cases I know the larva were about to be capped on the 14th

I plucked out some of the suspicious ones, and found no mites. I plucked a few randomly from the hive (no mites). I did spot one mite (suspect) on a little worker. Prior to this, no mites spotted. Is this mite an indication I should do a more extensive check for infestation.

I can't tell because many cells remain uncapped, but could it be that they are done making drones? and converting those cells to workers?

EDIT:
This only appears to be happening to the drone brood. The worker brood seams fine.

 

[Vance G]

If your bees are in between flows they very well may be removing drones as unneeded amd sometimes they eat them if they are short of pollen and need protein. Best answer is THEY DO THAT SOME TIMES. Wonderful critters we work for! Never run out of amazement.

 

[indypartridge]

Drones are expendable.We haven't had rain for nearly two months and everything is dry. The bees are conserving resources and eliminating non-essential resources.

 

[Mike Gillmore]

I'm seeing that here as well. This spring I had more drones in my colonies than I have ever seen. Now most of them have been booted out and drone brood is almost nonexistent. They may be preparing for an extended dry lean summer.