Maintaining a drone population

[gavin]

Do the queen rearers amongst us do anything special to maintain drones in their apiary as the season declines?

Bees around here have been throwing out drones for weeks and many colonies don't have any left. A fortnight ago I shook out a drone layer and was impressed by the number therein at a time when the last few were being harassed by workers elsewhere. That was the association apiary where we're not doing queen raising this year.

Last Sunday I was at our isolated mating site and saw just a few drones in the couple of drone producing colonies there, and they weren't looking welcome. However yesterday I heard from our collaborators on the site that their colonies still had lots of drones and so I've gone from pessimism about the chances for the current queens in Apideas and in cell raising colonies back to guarded optimism again. Their colonies include a queen raiser.

So what do folk do in seasons like this to maintain their drones? Avoid the issue by shortening the queen raising season? Keep feeding? Q-less cell raising on site? Deliberately leave queenless hives on site to provide drone hostels?

[busybeephilip]

I just call it an end to queen rearing and let nature take its course. I had one box which had what appeared to be more drones than workers where the queen decided to fail, after adding a new queen in the next day or two there was a heap of dead drones on the ground in front. i'm to busy (50 boxes) treating for varroa, emergency feeding and making preparations for winter feeding.

Now if you were using II, then you can harvest semen from your favourite drone/s, put in storage and continue rearing queens for another month.

[fatshark]

I either stop (which I've done this year) or take my chances (which I did last year). Like you, drones in most of my colonies - even those set up to generate lots - are pretty thin on the ground. I've given up this year due to lack of time though, not lack of drones.

Although I should probably start a different thread I'll stick with SBAi tradition and ask a vaguely related question ... I've switched largely to foundationless frames this season. One of the characteristics of these is that the colonies tend to generate significantly more drones. Instead of the odd patch around the edge of frames you might normally see, these colonies have one or two complete frames of almost solid drone comb. I think Jon introduced the foundationless frames to SBAi and that he has made a similar observation.

So, those of you who rear queens, like to be selective about your drone population and use foundationless frames ... what do you do?

Sorry Gavin ;)

[prakel]

So what do folk do in seasons like this to maintain their drones? Avoid the issue by shortening the queen raising season? Keep feeding? Q-less cell raising on site? Deliberately leave queenless hives on site to provide drone hostels?

I don't actually do anything. In the same way that I'm no fan of starting to raise cells early I can't see that keeping drones going artificially would fit my ideas about what's good for the bees.

That said, I never seem to have an issue with early destruction of drones, in my case I wonder whether it's partly due to the use of natural comb however back in 2012 ITLD was writing on the bkf about his native type bees throwing drones out in July while ours were able to make good use of a fine weather-window in September so maybe, if we take his post at face value, your local bees are more inclined to this behaviour.

Carl Jurica in his book mentions that he stops some late queens from mating and keeps them through winter as a source of early drones the following year. There's some good tips and thoughts in his book but I don't reckon that that's one of them.

[prakel]

...One of the characteristics of these is that the colonies tend to generate significantly more drones. Instead of the odd patch around the edge of frames you might normally see, these colonies have one or two complete frames of almost solid drone comb. I think Jon introduced the foundationless frames to SBAi and that he has made a similar observation.

So, those of you who rear queens, like to be selective about your drone population and use foundationless frames ... what do you do?

It's several years since we bought foundation and we probably won't go back to using it until such time as the bees buy themselves an efficient press/mill. What we generally see is drone comb spread across most/all frames in the brood chamber rather than individual combs full of drone.

I can see how it might be an issue if you were targeting certain drone mothers however I also reckon that if we're doing that then we'd be establishing sites with selected drone colonies anyway and moving the other one's to more distant apiaries so greater drone population in the individual hive is less important than the location.

[Jon]

My bees never throw drones out as early as July. As an importer of NZ Carnica and more, ITLD never misses a change to have a pop at native bees so take that with a pinch of salt. I had a couple of queens start to lay in October last year.
Any colony which is queenless or has a virgin will retain its drones.
Some of mine have very few drones at the moment but others still have hundreds.
If stores get low or the weather is bad your drones will get kicked out earlier.

[gavin]

Thanks folks.

I suspect that the climate differences between E Scotland and the Jurassic coast may have had something to do with the difference between Murray's bees and yours, Prakel. Besides, Murray's 'native types' are likely quite hybridised.

I have a bundle of grafted cells going to the mating site at the start of next week. I think that I'll remove the queens from the two drone colonies under my control and put a cell in each - that should encourage these two to keep some of the drones in the apiary for perhaps the next 3 weeks or so, longer if the queens don't mate, and at least as long as the sisters in the Apideas in the apiary (the last batch of grafts for the year) will need them. Happy to report back and even happier if it ends up adding something to Jon's talk in Llangollen! Currently these two colonies have very few drones but the colonies alongside are apparently well-provisioned with them, for now.

As for foundationless - sounds good. This year I tried drone foundation for the first time, and certainly if you put it in at the right time around the spring broodnest it works well. Whichever you use timing is important if you want a big slab of drone brood, wait until they are feeling that they have a decent worker population under their belts, as it were. If you are in the business of suppressing drone production in less favoured colonies and replacing with better genetics, then having your drone brood focused onto single frames will be useful.

[prakel]

lol. On the one point, I realise that there are differences in climate, I wasn't suggesting otherwise.

With regard to his importing bees, I covered that too:
if we take his post at face value Obviously I have no knowledge of whether his bees are quite hybridised or not, but as I wasn't really making a judgement on any specific pure race I don't think that it matters either way.

[Jon]

I have about 50 drone combs and and once a colony has 5 or 6 frames covered with bees I drop a couple of combs into the colony. In an ideal world this would be early April as you have about a 6 week time lag from drone egg laid to sexually mature drone. Getting queens mated before the end of May when you live this far north is a challenge but I did manage a few this year. Last year it was nearer the end of June. We have had 4 weeks of cool wet weather in August and hardly any queens have mated but that is not for lack of drones. Last Sunday and last Tuesday were decent enough days and I came across a few apideas with eggs yesterday evening. The wasps have picked a lot of them off.

I also came across a queenless colony with a couple of scrub queen cells in it so I gave it a frame of grafts after removing the cells. Those queens will be emerging 9th September so could mate from about the 15th. Nothing ventured and all that! First grafting I have done in about 3 weeks. Pointless in this weather as they were only starting a small number per frame.

[mbc]

Pollen, feed lots of pollen, from about Royal Welsh week (third week in July)up to when the last drones you envisage needing are at the sealed cell stage. Its a hell of an investment for patchy results IME, I'm with Prakel in that its best to do queen rearing when the bees think its best. Enough drones to mate the odd late supercedure queen is a different kettle of fish to getting consistent results with mating whole batches of grafted queens IMO.

[Jon]

Part of the Bibba folklore is that native colonies retain their drones for longer than colonies of other subspecies.
Anyone got any evidence for this? I would love it to be true as it would mean that you could get a batch of pure matings by waiting until September.

The other thing I came across recently thanks to Dara Scott, who is also a speaker in Wales, is this pape (http://www.springer.com/gp/about-springer/media/springer-select/worker-bees-know-when-to-invest-in-their-reproductive-future/32280)r which claims that a colony will start to make drones when it has 4000 workers. I am skeptical. I would have put the number far higher than that. 4000 bees would only cover about 3 frames.

[mbc]

The colonies with vigorous drone populations in my operation at this time of year are more likely to be the ones with inappropriately mated queens which are still brooding like mad, when I come across these I take nucs from them, replace the frames with foundation and feed heavily to build them up again for winter, marking her for requeening once shes spent herself making a new nest. The other type of colonies with plentiful drones are those with defective, or no, queens, and I cant see the value in breeding from these either.

[fatshark]

Part of the Bibba folklore is that native colonies retain their drones for longer than colonies of other subspecies.
Anyone got any evidence for this? I would love it to be true as it would mean that you could get a batch of pure matings by waiting until September.

Some of my colonies are known (grafted) daughters from Amm … about as close as I can get here. Some are alongside colonies of 'Heinz' parentage. There doesn't appear to be any difference in the drone numbers remaining i.e. they've almost all gone.

Re. the 4000 bees … I don't ever remember seeing drones being raised in what I would consider a weak 5 frame nuc. Perhaps it's related to colony density? Strong nucs certainly generate them … once they are thinking of doing a runner.

[Jon]

A strong 5 frame nuc could have more than 10,000 bees in it. Isn't the rule of thumb something like 1500-2000 bees per side of comb if it is densely covered.
I just think that figure of 4000 workers being a trigger for drone production can't be right - irrespective of any subspecies differences.

[lindsay s]

I'm with Prakel in that its best to do queen rearing when the bees think its best. Enough drones to mate the odd late supercedure queen is a different kettle of fish to getting consistent results with mating whole batches of grafted queens IMO.
We came across a lovely supersedure cell that was about to be sealed in one of my hives on Tuesday. The queen was still there and the and there was a lot of brood at all stages on the frames. At any other time of year that cell would have been used to make up a nuc. Some of the other beekeepers present thought I should leave it as the bees no best but unfortunately the cell got the chop. Most of my colonies were chucking out their drones and the same thing was happening at two nearby apiaries we had visited earlier in the day (we had a bee inspector with us). There was nothing wrong with the present queen and the chances of getting a virgin mated up here in mid-September would be pretty poor. So I hope I’ve made the right choice and I don’t end up with a queen less colony next year. To be honest unless there’s a problem I’m never in the brood boxes after the first week of September, but I’ve had queen less/drone laying colonies in the Spring and I wonder if failed late supersedures might be the cause rather than failing queens.

[Jon]

'The bees know best' is one of the biggest bits of nonsense in beekeeping. Sometimes they don't appear to have a clue especially with supersedure.
I had a colony which was queenright with brood all stages at the start of March. Next time I looked at the end of March there was no queen, an opened supersedure cell and a virgin on the comb. There was no chance of having any mature drones for well over a month so I nipped it and combined the colony with the one next door.
The other thing is that 'perfect' supersedure where the old queen is retained until the new queen is laying is quite rare.Usually the old queen is gone before the new queen has even emerged from the cell which is a very risky survival strategy.

I checked a few apideas and nucs yesterday evening and found about 8-10 with queens just started to lay so the queens are still finding a few drones out and about - hopefully my own.

Ps Lindsay, I have removed supersedure cells and the queen has gone on for another 18 months so you will probably be OK.

[mbc]

'The bees know best' is one of the biggest bits of nonsense in beekeeping.

Maybe in some circumstances, but with regard to when one can achieve the best "bang for your buck" with queen rearing, there can be no doubt that timing your queenrearing activity to coincide with when the bees do the bulk of their natural increase will provide far more consistent results than any attempts out of sink with them that know best.

[Jon]

Good weather plus lots of drones in June and July is the ideal time for getting queens mated.

[mbc]

Good weather plus lots of drones in June and July is the ideal time for getting queens mated.

Not quite, in my experience the best queens are from matings following the first flush of early swarming in May and early June, followed by a brief hiatus of a week or so, normally during mid to late June, and then another spell of very assured mating from late June through till the first few weeks of August and tailing off as August stretches out. Sometimes it can be quite baffling that virgins can remain unmated during the second half of August despite the scorchio, kids on the beach, weather we often get.
Remarkably, continuing the "bees know best" theme, cell raisers, despite being set up as close as possible to the same throughout the season, also yield the most consistent results in terms of quality and quantity of finished cells during these two most favourable phases of the season. The precise dates vary by up to a fortnight depending on the season and yet the bees seem to predict it correctly and mostly have their virgins out and about at the most propitious times. I remain convinced by close observation of my bees over twenty plus seasons that the bees do indeed "know best".

[lindsay s]

Carl Jurica in his book mentions that he stops some late queens from mating and keeps them through winter as a source of early drones the following year. There's some good tips and thoughts in his book but I don't reckon that that's one of them.
Any colonies with drone laying queens that I’ve come across in the springtime are usually in a pretty poor state. I find it hard to believe that a dwindling colony with old workers and no nurse bees could produce good quality drones for mating. On the other hand he maybe has a way around this? This is my layman’s point of view.

[prakel]

I find it hard to believe that a dwindling colony with old workers and no nurse bees could produce good quality drones for mating. On the other hand he maybe has a way around this? This is my layman’s point of view.

Totally agree with you.

I've just skimmed through the section to remind myself what it was that he actually wrote. I can't see any tricks mentioned, not even a recommendation to add worker brood etc which is something I would have thought an absolute necessity to make the plan work. The reasoning behind this apparent omission may have been to stop the production of undersized drones as he does mention that he fills the hive with drone comb culled from other colonies during the course of the summer but I'd have thought that the worker brood could still be added, with the aid of an excluder.

On the one hand he clearly states that he's running a business as a queen producer so I'm inclined to think that he must have had 'something' but on the other hand I don't buy into the method at all; it just doesn't feel right to me and anyway I don't have any use for early drones.

[gavin]

Couldn't that approach work simply to provide a drone-friendly home for drones raised in better times in a colony headed by a fertile queen? If winter holds them in the state they were in during autumn, then the colonies might emerge in spring with still-viable drones which were fed well in late summer or early autumn. Presumably they would largely need only carbohydrate overwinter. Would drones raised in, say, August, survive to April if the colony was predisposed to feed and welcome the adult drones?

If that was true then culling drone combs from several colonies to place in a colony without a properly fertile queen could indeed be a reservoir of a useful diversity of drone genotypes, just what you need in queen raising.

OK, here's another question. If I was to remove the fertile queen in a colony now that had already largely jetisoned its drones (and replace her with a ripe cell), might that colony welcome and host the drone population drifting in from other colonies in the apiary? For this, I'm not thinking of overwintering drones, just ensuring they're not kicked out from these other colonies and lost in the next few weeks.

These things interest me as a short season of queen raising is OK when you don't need many queens, but if you have limited resources and a need for as many queens as possible (either you're going commercial or would like to serve a large community of LA members) then extending the season at both ends is attractive.

PS Excellent discussion so far folks! Thanks ....

[prakel]

Just a side comment, a commercial carnica breeder from the continent told me recently that he wound things up at the end of July this year due to the bad weather that they were experiencing in his locality.

[prakel]

My first experiments to assure an early supply if drones dealt along the idea of trying to overwinter existing drones.This did not prove too practical, since it was hard to get large numbers into hives and keep them there........

Practical Queen Production In the North. by Carl A. Jurica Ph.D.

I was tempted to copy the full chapter but as the book's in print and the now ageing author is trying to raise some income from it I've decided not to. There's some thought provoking ideas in this little book which carries a 1985 copyright.

[Jon]

Just a side comment, a commercial carnica breeder from the continent told me recently that he wound things up at the end of July this year due to the bad weather that they were experiencing in his locality.

That where I would be a wee bit skeptical with the 'bees know best' mantra.
A colony preparing to swarm or supersede needs to have weather knowledge 3 -6 weeks ahead with regard to the chances of getting mated.

I have 4 colonies at the moment with supersedure virgins present and in all 4 the old queen who was laying fine has already disappeared.
That makes no sense to me but hey, the bees know best!
Good weather forecast for next week so maybe they have a better idea than Michael Fish.

[prakel]

There are a couple threads on Beesource where Michael Palmer has mentioned a French local-strain which it's claimed anticipates the (lavender?) flow. Can't remember exact details at present but it's a rare reference to such behaviour.

[Jon]

Anticipating a regular flow in a particular geographic area - that would be subject to natural selection if it were fairly regular. year on year Predicting the weather a month ahead in the UK with regard to queen mating is another matter.

[lindsay s]

I’m sure that some boffins out there must have researched over wintering drones and their viability in the next spring but I can’t be bothered to google it. I suggest that Gavin gets his marking pen out and puts a queen excluder below the brood box; the worst that can happen is a pile of dead drones before Christmas!:D
Could it be that the current years drones get chucked out over the winter and the ones we see in a drone laying colony in the early spring have been laid after the brood break? That’s my $64,000 question.

[prakel]

Anticipating a regular flow in a particular geographic area - that would be subject to natural selection if it were fairly regular. year on year Predicting the weather a month ahead in the UK with regard to queen mating is another matter.

Yes, it was just another of my perhaps irritating side-line references, not strictly applicable to this thread.

[mbc]

Drones have a limited window of usefulness, even when queenless colonies pick up the drones discarded from other colonies I doubt that many of them are actually much cop when it comes to properly fertilising virgin queens.

[Jon]

What is that window MBC? They are fertile about 2 weeks from emergence but how long does fertility last after that point?

Lindsey - I have some colonies which definitely overwinter a small number or drones.

[prakel]

Could it be that the current years drones get chucked out over the winter and the ones we see in a drone laying colony in the early spring have been laid after the brood break? That’s my $64,000 question.

I think Dr Jurica based his system around the idea that by the Spring there would be a lot of younger drones even if the older ones were still present. Which is one reason why he needed to fill the brood-nest with drone comb in order to get the consistently good results which he reported.

[mbc]

In the natural course of events, I'm not sure anyones recorded it, but certainly those who practice II find it difficult to harvest useful semen from drones over a month old.

[Jon]

In the natural course of events, I'm not sure anyones recorded it, but certainly those who practice II find it difficult to harvest useful semen from drones over a month old.

so likely just a couple of weeks from maturity?

[mbc]

so likely just a couple of weeks from maturity?

Well, you know what they say Jon, bees know best, I would think they do it a little better than a manual drone everter ;)
but I think it is a shrinking and hardening of the testes that makes the older drones useless for II so one would imagine the same effect would also come into play during natural copulation(or failure to do so) but perhaps not quite so soon after emergence.
In Queen Bee: Biology, Rearing and Breeding by David Woodward, it actually says they only use drones between 12 and 20 days old.

[Jon]

Yes, I imagine they have peak fertility a couple of weeks from emergence and that it tails off. Some of the papers I have read that look at the DNA in a queen's spermatheca show that a single drone can contribute maybe 30% of the semen and others only a few percent. I guess one explanation for that could be the viability of an individual drone's sperm but there could be several other explanations for the non random contribution from each drone.

[Adam]

When I was studying for the BBKA queen rearing module, I recall 90 days as a maximum for drones as a viable 'bonk by date.' with a 1 month ideal time. I would be surprised if over-wintered drones were much good unless they were to go into a 'winter-drone' state in the way we have winter bees. (Fat bodies build up perhaps?) There is currently a little drone comb in a few of my colonies - just the odd corner of old drone comb here and there - so for me there would still be a chance of drones going into October if they're not chucked out first. The worry for me is whether the drone brood is indicative of a failing queen. In nature, I would guess that there are probably enough colonies in any one area that have queens that fail during winter to act as drone producers for spring supercedure queens - then it's up to the weather.

For supercedure, I've had a couple that worked well this year. One in the summer as the brood nest was shrinking when it should have been increasing and a perfect supercedure where I saw mother and daughter on the comb this weekend. A big fat daughter with the brood nest increased from what it was a few weeks ago. In both cases Mum had not produced drones but was slowing down markedly.

[Adam]

mbc - is David Woodwards book to be recommended? I have Eigil Holms book and don't like it - the translation is rubbish and it's difficult to understand.

[mbc]

mbc - is David Woodwards book to be recommended? I have Eigil Holms book and don't like it - the translation is rubbish and it's difficult to understand.

The Woodward book is a bit of a "how to" manual, with an emphasis on the Cloak board method, and no flowery narrative, but its very clear, I particularly liked the genetics bit, so clearly and simply explained that even I made some sense of it.
I would highly recommend it, but I'm sure to many of you it would seem a bit of a "bricklayers" queenrearing book.

[Jon]

I looked in a few colonies today and a couple of queens had started laying again in drone comb. 10 September today. Do these bees who know best really think they will have a use for fertile drones around mid October? I have about 15 queen cells due to emerge on Sunday, grafted into a queenless colony last Tuesday in a moment of madness so maybe I might get a few of those mated. Sunday in the 14th so in theory they could fly and mate from about 20th September.

I had several colonies superseding and their new queens all started to lay in the past week. last Thursday it reached 22c so any queen who failed to fly and mate on that day needs its 'bees know best' head examined.

Came across the latter stages of a mating swarm today as well, a little cluster with a queen on top of a water bottle which was acting as a weight on top of a Payne Poly nuc.
They were acting a bit aggressive with their queen, starting to ball and sting at times. I have seen them kill the queen at this stage. Not sure why they would do that as it is colony suicide, well in reality apidea suicide in this case. There was only one Apidea on the site with a virgin. I checked it and she was not at home. I'll have a look in a couple of days to see if she made it back in one piece. I have a couple of gammy leg queens in apideas at the moment.

[Mellifera Crofter]

... Came across the latter stages of a mating swarm today as well, a little cluster with a queen ... I'll have a look in a couple of days to see if she made it back in one piece. ...

So did you leave them on top of the water bottle, Jon?
Kitta

[Jon]

The queen took off but I don't know if she flew to the apidea or over the horizon!

[Little_John]

To draw on 'military-speak' ...

I think from a tactical point-of-view, bees have got it nailed: for they can forage and select what they need from whatever they find 'out there'; they have the ability (somehow) to assign to themselves whatever jobs need doing around the hive, and without anybody (apparently) being in charge. They can self-regulate temperature and humidity within reasonable limits. All clever stuff.

But from a strategic viewpoint - they fail miserably. I checked a hive yesterday from which a virgin had emerged 2 1/2 weeks ago. Not a dicky-bird to be seen in the way of eggs or larva. Did she make it ... who knows ? I'll just have to wait and see, and combine 'em if she didn't. But that hive had 8 viable emergency queen cells - and they let that gal knock-off 7 of them. Pretty pi$$-poor planning, in my view.
And mating conditions haven't been that great - that is, until the last couple of days. I bet now they wish they'd kept a couple of virgins in reserve ...

LJ

[Feckless Drone]

To continue the military speak - Bunker hill "wait till you see the white of their eyes." 2 1/2 weeks since emergence is too soon to make a decision about what is happening, still leaves time for laying to start. I've had two colonies get to the end of the season then in one case kick out a Q after uniting or in the other just decide to swarm. In both cases took 4 weeks for laying to start. That's 4 weeks from emergence to seeing eggs not brood. In one case I knew the Q was there cause I saw her, in both cases the colonies were strong, bees were calm and with stores (no pollen) around cells being kept clean and ready for eggs. I always look for the pollen to start going in (I know its not 100% but still a pretty good indicator) as a sign laying is just about to or has started. So - at ease Sir, at least until after the referendum, Damn! I mentioned it.

[gavin]

Damn! I mentioned it.

Is there an appetite for mentioning it much more, and is there a beekeeping side to this? Is there a need for a heavily moderated corner on SBAi?

There is some discussion on another forum, and it isn't pretty. Stuff I've seen on FB is very polarised, mostly just the converted speaking to the converted, and when someone comes in with naive stuff from the other side (whatever that is!) the temptation is just to de-friend them so that you don't receive more of it.

[Adam]

Jon, you do seem to get the odd gammy leg with your queens.. not something I've seen. I guess it's a genetic thing. What happens to them?

[Jon]

I thought at first it was genetic but apparently it happens when a worker stings a queen on a leg joint which paralyses the leg. Manley wrote about it. It can happen when a queen returns from a mating flight and gets stung by a worker. I have also noticed that queens I have rescued from balling often have a gammy leg afterwards which is due to picking up a sting during the melee. A queen can also get damaged when she is in the introduction cage if she gets stung through the cage. If the bees are not ready to accept a queen they will pull at her feet if she has no hiding place in the cage and this can cause damage. Some of them lay ok and I am happy to use them but often the brood is a bit spotty so they get squished.

[busybeephilip]

I've got one like this on the go at the moment. She was fine before introduction but i noticed it later after she was laying a while. AS you say the egg laying pattern can be a bit erratic, like Jon I just replace with another. Aggravation from the workers during introduction is the most logical explanation maybe she is released too quickly.

[Duncan]

There is also the question of drone quality versus quantity. Full combs of drone brood are not desirable if you want to produce QUALITY drones. One third of a brood comb seems to be about the maximum amount for good quality drones. They may produce many more, but they are of inferior quality. Rather like getting a colony to feed 100 queens cells at a time. The raising of drones is an enormous effort for the colony and needs good conditions as regards pollen availability. Drone quality is very obvious when doing AI.

[Jon]

The queen took off but I don't know if she flew to the apidea or over the horizon!

Checked that apidea today and the queen was in it and she was laying. Might keep that one as I know it has mated with the drones from the apiary.

[Jon]

There is also the question of drone quality versus quantity. Full combs of drone brood are not desirable if you want to produce QUALITY drones.

Hi Duncan. I am not sure I agree with that. A strong colony can easily keep a couple of drone combs laid up over the summer. I reckon my strongest colonies have 3000-4000 drones peak season.

I have combs like this:

2132

[Duncan]

As I said, there are drones and there are DRONES. When doing AI, I can see the difference in semen quantity. A large number of drones have a very small amount of semen or are firing blanks!
Another interesting observation is that the drones that are on the small side often produce the most semen! These are from the same hive as the larger ones that are often duds. Just some things that I have noticed over the years.

[Little_John]

As I said, there are drones and there are DRONES. When doing AI, I can see the difference in semen quantity. A large number of drones have a very small amount of semen or are firing blanks!
Another interesting observation is that the drones that are on the small side often produce the most semen! These are from the same hive as the larger ones that are often duds. Just some things that I have noticed over the years.

Is there a definite correlation between the amount of semen a drone produces, and the amount of viable sperm within it ?
LJ

[Jon]

Hi Duncan. I realise that some drones are infertile but I don't see how you can link that to the quantity of drones a hive is making. There are 101 reasons why a drone might be infertile. Age and disease would be two obvious variables which spring to mind.

[Duncan]

If you are unable to appreciate the difference between a colony raising 1000 and 5000 drones, then I do not see any point in continuing the discussion.
As mentioned above, give a colony 100 queens cells to feed, they might complete all of them but queen quality would be very low, they would produce good quality queens if > 20 were offered.

[Jon]

Duncan, a colony feeds worker larvae at the same time it feeds drone larvae so the total number of mouths to feed would be more important than just considering the amount of drone brood. The key factors will also include number of nurse bees in the colony relative to colony size, nectar flow to the colony, pollen intake and variety of pollen amongst others.
I insert drone combs into the brood chamber so that the colony will raise a relatively large number or drones relative to the total population of the colony.

[mbc]

Everything points to quality being more important than quantity with drones, barring the swallow bait effect.

[Little_John]

Is there a definite correlation between the amount of semen a drone produces, and the amount of viable sperm within it ?
LJ

With no answer forthcoming, I decided to have a 'google' around ... Seems that this is yet another poorly researched area: it's suggested that there are many variables involved (age, size and weight, genetic lines, season, climatic condtions and so on ...), so perhaps that is why

But - not only does it appear that there's no definite correlation between semen volume and sperm concentration, but the 'experts' do not even agree (in terms of the number of sperm observed) on what constitutes a 'healthy' drone, nor what constitutes a 'healthy' mating.

Oh well, back to the muddy waters ... :)

LJ

[busybeephilip]

As I said, there are drones and there are DRONES. When doing AI, I can see the difference in semen quantity. A large number of drones have a very small amount of semen or are firing blanks!
Another interesting observation is that the drones that are on the small side often produce the most semen! These are from the same hive as the larger ones that are often duds. Just some things that I have noticed over the years.

I agree with what Duncan is saying having observed the same although I have always avoided undersize drones so cant comment on that. Rearing drones is hard on a colony which has been set aside for that purpose. I am talking about at least a minimum of a full super of drone comb with brood in all stages. The colony needs continuous gentle feeding and often to be supplemented with pollen substitute. Its not a case of simply adding a frame of drone comb to obtain II drones. For II, a large number of drones of the correct age are needed, the age window appears to be rather narrow, too young you get nothing and similarly to old is no use due to popping. You can tell immediately when the drone inverts (some don't) from the color of the horns whether its worthwhile trying to harvest. As Duncan comments, the amount of semen does vary quite a lot. Semen quality is a different matter which I have never tried to investigate fully although dead and live can be stained with fluorescent dyes and counted under a UV microscope - only a useful tool if one intends to store semen for lengthy periods

[Jon]

A couple of years ago I spent an afternoon everting drones with Tim B and a lot were firing blanks, or were too old. I think if you want drones of the correct age for II you need to get the timing right with regard to when the comb goes in and when the drones are harvested. The ones that we were popping were just randomly harvested at the entrance of a colony by placing an excluder over the front once they were out flying on a sunny afternoon. You would need to be more organised than that. Proper nutrition is critical for queen cell production or any aspect of beekeeping for that matter. With a flow on and abundant pollen you get more cells started and better fed queens. I had about 15 virgins emerge in the past 10 days and some of them look like nice specimens so let's hope there is time and the weather for them to mate with the remaining drones. A colony I opened at the weekend had a big slab of sealed drone brood but those ones will be no good for at least 3 weeks.

[busybeephilip]

A couple of years ago I spent an afternoon everting drones with Tim B and a lot were firing blanks, or were too old. I think if you want drones of the correct age for II you need to get the timing right with regard to when the comb goes in and when the drones are harvested. The ones that we were popping were just randomly harvested at the entrance of a colony by placing an excluder over the front once they were out flying on a sunny afternoon.

Marking Drones after hatching helps ! The newly hatched drones are easily identified and marked rather than taking them randomly using a queens excluder method like you and Tim did. For most persons who try II obtaining enough clean semen is the difficult part.

[Jon]

It was Tim's project and my commitment was limited to gathering up a few drones from him to experiment with. I have had an offer of the lend of a Schley apparatus but finding the time for the palaver is my problem.

[Little_John]

Carl Jurica in his book mentions that he stops some late queens from mating and keeps them through winter as a source of early drones the following year. There's some good tips and thoughts in his book but I don't reckon that that's one of them.

Just came across this:


I do not know that the length of life of the Drone has been satisfactorily ascertained - in fact, we may conclude they usually meet with a violent death before they are three months old, but I have in a Queenless stock kept Drones alive from Autumn until the following Spring.

A Manual of Beekeeping, John Hunter (late Honorary Secretary of the British Beekeepers Association), 4th Ed. 1884, page 19.

Unfortunately the author gives no clue as to the intended purpose of over-wintering drones.

LJ

[Jon]

Some of my colonies overwinter a few drones.