drones.

[juanito]

greetings,
I have just done an inspection of both hives, hive No2 all looks as it should, hive No1 on the other hand is crammed with bees covering fifty percent worker brood and fifty percent drone brood !!,
strange thing is that the workers were ripping open capped drone brood, is this normal,
I managed to see the queen, which is a rarity for me.

 

[juanito]

Oh, in my excitement I forget about the queen cells on the fronts of the comb, as yet they are empty!!

 

[Finman]

greetings,
I have just done an inspection of both hives, hive No2 all looks as it should, hive No1 on the other hand is crammed with bees covering fifty percent worker brood and fifty percent drone brood !!,
strange thing is that the workers were ripping open capped drone brood, is this normal,
I managed to see the queen, which is a rarity for me.

50% drone brood is not normal. Change the queen.

 

[drstitson]

"workers were ripping open capped drone brood, is this normal,"

they just know they don't need drones yet.

but still waste of resources.

 

[Finman]

.
If the hive has drones in normal worker cells, queen is violated. Some is ok, but over 10% is not.

 

[La Folie]

Drones are important and, perhaps, under studied as yet. However, as Finman says, you have too many drones which may indicate an old or poorly mated queen. Your bees seem to know this and are looking to supercede.

 

[pargyle]

I regularly see as much as 20% drone cells in my foundationless frames during the season but it's usually less than this. Certainly for this time of the year, if you have 50% drone cells and you are sure about that, it's too many ... something not right.

It's early to be changing the queen but there are overwintered and mated queens available and in the circumstances I'd agree with Finman (Damn - twice in three days .... what's happening !). But you need to have a decent day to do it and you will need to find the duff queen ... and tend to any queen cells they try to raise as there's little chance of a successful mating.

Alternative is to wait and see what happens over the next few weeks ... if she starts to lay only drones then you still have the chance to re-queen at that point in time or there's going to be more chance of a successful supercedure if the colony decide she's a duffer.

 

[Hivemaker.]

It's early to be changing the queen but there are overwintered and mated queens available

If needed, queens will be available very soon, if not already, in Almeria, and i imagine the weather would be OK for queens to mate at this time of year, they will soon be ready for importing from many southern regions of Spain such as this.

 

[pargyle]

If needed, queens will be available very soon, if not already, in Almeria, and i imagine the weather would be OK for queens to mate at this time of year, they will soon be ready for importing from many southern regions of Spain such as this.

When will your queens be ready Pete ?

There's a few UK internet queen suppliers who claim to have queens available now but I'm not convinced that 'Now' actually means what it says ... unless, as you say, they are imported queens. Having said that 'any port in a storm' springs to mind for the OP.

 

[Hivemaker.]

When will your queens be ready Pete ?

There's a few UK internet queen suppliers who claim to have queens available now but I'm not convinced that 'Now' actually means what it says ... unless, as you say, they are imported queens. Having said that 'any port in a storm' springs to mind for the OP.

The OP is in southern Spain, so buying a queen, or getting one of his own mated at this time of year should not be much of a problem, he would certainly not need to import one from the UK.

 

[juanito]

Greetings,
Many thanks for your replies,
As the bees seem healthy enough I am quite happy to let them supercede , I counted twelve different plants which the bees bees were working yesterday aswell as many unknown wild flowers,
Almond blossom,cherry blossom, pelargoniums, iceplant, gazinias, fresias, cape daisy, felicias, lavender, rosemary, belly buttonplant, and last but not least, malephora.