Drones being evicted already??

[Ringlander]

One if my hives looked quite busy this afternoon, I thought it looked like it was being robbed so went to close the entrance down but on closer inspection the fighting was all workers going for drones. Isn't this rather early in the season for that or is it telling me something? This particular hive was queenless for two or three weeks about 6 weeks ago until a queen cell inserted from another hive hatched. She has been laying for around 2 weeks. There was quite a lot of drone brood on there when the cell was added, are they just culling the drone numbers back do you think? Your thoughts appreciated as always.

 

[madasafish]

Your bees may be short of stores.
Have you checked?

Lots of drones here.. no throwing out

 

[beeno]

Mine are evicting drones at the moment too, but there was an unusual amount of drones being produced this year, presumably from the heavy spring flow. Also, I noticed some being evicted whilst there is still a small amount of drone brood in the hive. I seem to recall that they get rid of the old drones plus foreign marauding drones when there is not on strong flow on.

 

[Curly green finger's]

You beat me two it I was going to ask has the flow stopped in the ops area

 

[Ringlander]

Yes, the flow seems to have slowed right down in my bit of Norfolk. I just checked the hive after the suggestion about stores but theres plenty of honey and pollen on the brood frames and three supers all at about 75% capacity. I didn't see any drone brood just now but did see the queen for the first time and gave her some blue war paint! Activity at the front of the hive seems to have calmed down but still some drones sat forlornly on the landing board....

 

[Cole lynch]

Mine have been evicting Drones for the last couple of days too

 

[Chris Nother]

One of my four hives was booting drones out yesterday.