Drone producing colonies

[jeff33]

As I demaree most of my hives for swarm management, I often put the deep frames through the spinner hence why I need to keep a fair amount of wired foundation frames.

 

[magor]

in my experiment this late winter/early spring, transformed from lang to national and to foundationless

when put 1 or 2 foundationless frames in strong colonies with already decent amount of worker brood frames them mostly draw them most part drone/cell also them did the same in the side gap from lang frames/combs i cutted them to fit in nationals boxes,i think its kinda like the same as ya ve put them 1-2 drone combs , and so seems already worker combs stay worker

but when did this in smaller colonies/nucs? or when did pagden/AS the above strong colonies them draw mostly worker brood but also with areas of drone comb that go larger as nest open

so maybe if ya want do as mbc doing its better go ''foundationless'' colonies for your mating purposes instead of those ''drone'' combs,what wanted to say is that either ya put 1 drone comb or 1 foundationless frame is not that ya forcing something but it think its the same

 

[jeff33]

@elainemary, I read something about a commercial UK beek who raises 100s of queens each year using semi secluded valleys for mating. He puts in excess of 20 drone producing hives to flood the area.