I live in Oakland, CA and am a new beekeeper. We are in the middle of a severe drought and I came home from vacation to observe some interesting hive behavior. I found five or six drones that had been expelled from the hive. Later that evening I found six pupae that had been expelled, too. Here is a short video I made. The first part shows bees in orientation fight. The other parts are about drone expulsion.
Drone Expulsion
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I noticed this too, with my hive directly after I pulled honey supers off. The drones were getting dragged out and thumped by two workers each. Maybe they got blamed for the missing honey! I guess the workers took inventory and calculated honey to bees ratio, and they became excess baggage. Poor guys, all so handsome too.
NBL
NBL
I keep waiting for one of my hives to do this. They have an absolute ton of drones in the hive. A few combs are completely covered with them. I think they may have possibly swarmed, the queen they have now is doing well. It just seems like it's 50/50 workers:drones at the moment.
Noticed a lot of drone brood being dumped outside several of my hives. Still adult drones in the hives though. Checked a couple of hives and they still have frames to draw and room for honey or brood so not sure what's going on unless it's hygienic behavior. Nectar flow could be slowing down too.
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Bee-chezz's bee mean like that!! Lol
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