Droney, healthy or failing?

[Erichalfbee]

Ivy?
Gorse?
Any near you?
Then nectar will be coming in still, especially if they are bringing in yellow pollen, which is ivy, then they will be bringing in nectar. My hives smell of ivy some distance away.
The best thing to do is give the boxes a quick heft. If they are nailed down they are OK

 

[Webby]

Ivy?
Gorse?
Any near you?
Then nectar will be coming in still, especially if they are bringing in yellow pollen, which is ivy, then they will be bringing in nectar. My hives smell of ivy some distance away.
The best thing to do is give the boxes a quick heft. If they are nailed down they are OK

They were flat out yesterday,lots of pollen coming in.

 

[beeno]

One or two drones flying from my strongest colonies. Very strong colonies with plenty of stores sometimes allow a few drones to overwinter. However, the presence of drone pupae on the alighting board during the winter months usually in my experience has resulted in a drone layer.

This was the argument I tried to pursue a couple of years ago and was shot down in flames as usual by certain forum members and I ended up quoting from Eva Crane's book. Now the movement seems to be going the other way that it is ok to have 'plenty of drones' flying from hives at the end of October. Well, I never... are some people really only interested in reassuring newbies that everything is going to be ok, because there is nothing to be done if you are a newbie anyway as it is too late in the season, whilst Icanhopit is presently uniting and a commercial beek would sort it if need be. No wonder some newbies are in a constant state of chaos and think it normal beekeeping!

 

[beeno]

Really!!! Not all hives chuck their drones out en mass beginning of October.

I have five hives at the moment and have just done a second vaping with oxalic acid. Every single one of them has drones flying at the moment. It's 14 degrees here in Lancashire today and lots of pollen going in too.
Every one of my hives cannot have a drone laying queen, a virgin or a newly mated queen. Considering the law of averages.

IMHO it is to do with your beekeeping skills and what the colonies need and not the law of averages, especially if we are talking 5 hives. My colonies chucked their drones out before I started feeding, albeit they did have some drone brood, but I don't think they went through with it as I have not seen any drones and they had plenty of them earlier on. Weather in my part of the world definitely autumnal now. Colonies all +Q, full of stores with just a little pollen still being collected. Let us know how they get on as it sounds interesting.

 

[beeno]

Don't worry - it's the usual tripe she spouts from a pamphlet she found somewhere - at least it gives the beginners something to ignore.

Alright Trump. It is not an endearing quality in the eyes of the majority.

 

[Swarm]

I don't think beekeeping skill has anything to do with when the drones get the boot, the bees will decide that, not the beekeeper.

 

[BeeJayBee]

Reports from family observing are that hives are indeed stacking in tons of pollen and seem busy and happy. Will there still be nectar around at ALL? Or only pollen? ie, will they be churning through there recently fed stores and I'm gonna have to get back on a mega feed again when I get back in 10 days or so? I was hoping to build up some celotex bee cosies, mouse guard them and leave them beeeee... maybe no such luck... I'm totally bored of syrup.

It depends where your bees are, rural bees probably get a rougher time of it than urban bees.

In towns there's usually something for them to eat almost all year round. At the moment, here in Hants, there are cyclamen and michaelmas daisies in flower as well as fuchsias, sedums, autumn flowering heathers. Wallflowers and winter pansies etc are just starting. Add these to the ivy, and maybe some gorse, it means there's a fair amount of forage - if the weather's good enough for them to fly to find it.

Once those plants have finished they'll be succeeded by mahonias, viburnum tinus, christmas rose, and some early hazel catkins - which we always see in Mid December.

 

[masterBK]

Not seen any drones in my apiary for weeks, My colonies (rightly or wrongly) generally tend to kick them all out by mid september whether the weather is good or bad and this year was no exception. Perhaps the trigger in my bees is related to decreasing day length with some sort of threshold. Be interesting to find out. They also have the habit of kicking them out in a june gap which I'm sure is definitely linked to lack of forage

 

[jd101k2000]

One of my stronger and more productive colonies still had drones a couple of weeks back. Now that the cold weather is starting to hit, I think that all the boys have been disposed of.

The bees have been sorting this out for about 65M years now, so they are quite good at getting it right. If you do have laying workers or a drone laying queen, there is nothing you can do about it at this time of the year. Fidgeting around in the brood nest is not going to help, only hinder... so do nothing.

 

[Hivemaker.]

a commercial beek would sort it if need be.

Some would, some wouldn't, myself, if there was a problem with a queen, I would sort it out at any time of the year.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

If I had a couple of hundred spare Queens in the back garden I'd probably do the same

Sent from my SM-A310F using Tapatalk

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

are some people really only interested in reassuring newbies that everything is going to be ok, because there is nothing to be done if you are a newbie anyway

Or is it better hearing from you stating without any real knowledge of what's going on but based on some paragraph you have read and drawn a cartload of assumptions from that the colony is definitely doomed?

That's from someone who doesn't know their tropilaelaps from their SHB!

90% of the advice you spout is what you have read not what you have observed and as for the rest that may be correct........ would any sane person follow it on the chance it's the 10%

 

[B+.]

Some would, some wouldn't, myself, if there was a problem with a queen, I would sort it out at any time of the year.

I can see where you're coming from, and, I would completely agree with you for production colonies.
However, test colonies provide valuable information on the family group. So, even colonies that might be considered a failure, should still be tested. I had 3 colonies that were unsatisfactory for one reason or another, but, I still had to complete the monitoring process so the figures wouldn't be skewed by all the other queens in the group that performed well.