I finally saw my first drone on Wednesday April 20. He made his appearance on the landing board of my busiest hive–just one day shy of a month later than last year. Although I went through the rest of my hives, he was the only fully-formed male I could find.
I did, however, find lots of drone comb filled with eggs, so I know the males are coming. Below is a piece of burr comb that had been built inside one of the feeders. It was built as drone comb–as burr comb frequently is–and each cell has a neatly placed haploid egg inside. Haploid honey bee eggs–those having only one set of chromosomes–are always destined to be male.
These signs tell me swarm season is just around the corner. Once the drones are in abundance, the mating frenzy will begin.
Rusty
Drone comb filled with eggs.
I am about to set up my first bee box. I am finding there sure is a lot to learn. It appears that I won’t be doing most of the work but the knowledge it takes for the behind the scenes sure makes up for the ‘labor’ that the bees will be doing.
Hi. Nice site, very useful to first year beekeepers like ourselves. You mention haploid eggs as if you can spot them by eye. Can you?
No, you cannot spot haploid eggs by sight, but you can see drone comb by sight. The cells are much larger than the cells built for the diploid worker bee eggs. The queen lays drone eggs in the larger drone cells so, by inference, you know they are haploid.
I’d like to ask an additional question on drones, if I may. It has been an odd year here in the English New Forest, but luckily the late summer weather has been very kind to the single colony we have which we obtained in July. Observing the hive entrance one sunny day in late September we were surprised to see a number of drones coming out, some ‘droning’ around doing orientating flights and some actually flying off and returning. And, though it’s almost November, with the odd overnight frost there is no obvious sign of drone eviction i.e no pushing at the entrance and no piles of dead bees. Any thoughts?
Now that’s weird. Drones should be gone by now. Both shortening day length and cooler temperatures signal the queen that she should stop laying drone eggs. I haven’t seen a drone for a month or more.
Does anyone have any input on this?
I have four Langstroth hives. One is foundationless. Three are, I suppose you could call them, conventional hives with plastic foundation.
The drones in all the hives began to get the boot a month or so ago. But in the past couple weeks I’ve noticed still plenty of drones coming out of the foundationless hive — and they’re not being pulled out like they were a month ago. They’re coming and going and the worker bees are leaving them alone.
I’m not sure what’s going on.
I’m very new at this. It is November in San Diego, I’ve got a hive IN AN OWL BOX and I just got my first beehive box and a super. Do any of you have any idea what would be the best to transfer the original bee hive to the new box? Is there a simultaneous way to split the hive at this time or should I let them get into the new house and then wait for this winter and then split?
If I see any signs of new queen larvae developing can I split now?
And last . . . do I have to leave lots of honey comb and brood on the new box coming from the original box?
I keep reading and studying as I’m assembling the box. Please if you know let me know . . .
Regards,
Ferbee