Finman
Queen Bee
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2008
- Messages
- 27,887
- Reaction score
- 2,024
- Location
- Finland, Helsinki
- Hive Type
- Langstroth
Mayny times it has been told that colonies make same number of drones even if you cut them off.
Here is research 2007
NUMBER OF DRONE CELLS IN THE NATURAL-BUILT HONEYCOMBS OF A. M. MACEDONICA
Goras G., Dislis S., Konstas N., Thrasyvoulou A.
Laboratory of Apiculture – Sericulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, . [email protected]
Beekeeping as a biological agriculture requires the replacement of all of the honeycombs. Using frames with foundation comb provides uniformity with minimal structure of dronecells but biological wax is limited and it is not always free of residues.
As a solution it could be proposed to “force” bees to build the frames without using foundation combs, but in this case, the number of dronecells would be higher. This number depends on the bee race but there in no paper that it refers to this characteristic for the indigenous of Greece.
In this paper present the first data concerns the production of dronecells in beecolonies with and without foundation comb. The experimental group provided with frames with foundation comb, produced less drone cells (0,03% per bee colony) in relation to the second group, which built natural honeycombs and so produced more dronecells (20,6% per bee colony). These average numbers present significant differences and this is also occurs after the comparison of the number of worker cells that the two experimental groups produced. First group produced mainly worker cells (99,97% per colony), while the second group produced 79,3% worker cells per colony.
Finally we can establish that in each experimental group there is a great variance among the colonies that concerns the number of dronecells, regardless of the use (CV% : 316,7%) or not (CV% : 67%) foundation combs.
Further research is needed to examine if these different numbers of cells in each case might influence on other characteristics of the beecolony such as yield of honey and pollen and also in diseases like varroa mite.
Here is research 2007
NUMBER OF DRONE CELLS IN THE NATURAL-BUILT HONEYCOMBS OF A. M. MACEDONICA
Goras G., Dislis S., Konstas N., Thrasyvoulou A.
Laboratory of Apiculture – Sericulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, . [email protected]
Beekeeping as a biological agriculture requires the replacement of all of the honeycombs. Using frames with foundation comb provides uniformity with minimal structure of dronecells but biological wax is limited and it is not always free of residues.
As a solution it could be proposed to “force” bees to build the frames without using foundation combs, but in this case, the number of dronecells would be higher. This number depends on the bee race but there in no paper that it refers to this characteristic for the indigenous of Greece.
In this paper present the first data concerns the production of dronecells in beecolonies with and without foundation comb. The experimental group provided with frames with foundation comb, produced less drone cells (0,03% per bee colony) in relation to the second group, which built natural honeycombs and so produced more dronecells (20,6% per bee colony). These average numbers present significant differences and this is also occurs after the comparison of the number of worker cells that the two experimental groups produced. First group produced mainly worker cells (99,97% per colony), while the second group produced 79,3% worker cells per colony.
Finally we can establish that in each experimental group there is a great variance among the colonies that concerns the number of dronecells, regardless of the use (CV% : 316,7%) or not (CV% : 67%) foundation combs.
Further research is needed to examine if these different numbers of cells in each case might influence on other characteristics of the beecolony such as yield of honey and pollen and also in diseases like varroa mite.
