Frame spacing and size of drones.

[Finman]

As I said "presumably, bees are cleverer than that?"

I cannot see any clever in the fact, that bees rear males.

 

[Wilco]

It's nice to hear how bees are kept in whatever part of the World, still of interest even if not that pertinent to our own situation.
Fascinating observation by Norton, certainly not what one would expect.

It's my understanding that the big hulky guy at the gym is more likely to be firing blanks than the regular guy off the street... Different reason for it though!

 

[user 20297]

I cannot see any clever in the fact, that bees rear males.

I agree, raising males is nature, not "clever"; that's why I didn't say so.
They probably couldn't and wouldn't raise a drone in a cell which was too close to a cell on the opposite frame. OK, that's not clever either, it's just practical.

 

[Finman]

They probably couldn't and wouldn't raise a drone in a cell which was too close to a cell on the opposite frame. OK, that's not clever either, it's just practical.

A honey bee is only an animal.
.

 

[Finman]

I agree, raising males is nature, not "clever"; that's why I didn't say so.

About humans it is often said that to rear children is not clever. But hormones call.

 

[Fusion_power]

This question was researched back in the 1950's. Smaller cells do in fact result in smaller drones. However, the critical component is NOT cell length. It is cell diameter. There is also a huge genetic component with some races and breeds producing smaller drones regardless if they are reared in over-size cells. Are smaller drones somehow handicapped in mating or have less sperm count? I don't recall the details on this so would suggest looking it up. I manage my bees to produce an abundance of healthy drones because it helps with natural mating of queens that I raise in July or early August. Saturating the area with drones from my colonies is one way I maintain varroa tolerance in my bees.

One of the reasons small drones show up in some colonies is because they were given all-worker size foundation to build their combs. They will re-work a large number of these cells into intermediate sizes which the queen will lay in. The result is distinctly small drones because the cells are smaller diameter than bees would normally make for drones.

I've used 32 mm frame spacing since 1977 so have had a few opportunities to see what the bees do when rearing drones with close spaced frames. They do NOT rear short drones. When they build drone cells around the edges or even if they re-work cells in the middle of a frame, they always make the opposite frame accommodate the drone cells as they are capped. This often results in a frame in the middle of the brood nest that is not deep enough for worker brood which gets used for honey and pollen storage.

One sure fire way to make the bees re-work cells so they can produce drones is to give them only worker size cells in the brood nest. Bees are distinctly not happy with this arrangement and will take every opportunity to fix the problem. I've learned to put in a single half-depth frame in the 3rd or 4th position in from the side of the hive and deliberately space this frame a bit wide. The bees will draw drone comb off the bottom bars of the shallow frame and fill the cells with brood. This helps immensely in keeping them from reworking cells in worker size combs. After the spring season is over and the honey flows slow down, the shallow frame can be removed and replaced with a normal full depth frame the rest of the season. An advantage of doing this is that the removed drone brood will get rid of a lot of varroa mites. I don't normally remove the frame because my bees are tolerant enough of varroa that removing it has little or no benefit.

Why use 32mm frame spacing? Bees use 32mm and 38mm spacing respectively for worker and drone brood in natural colonies. 35mm which is the accepted standard for Langstroth/Hoffman self-spacing frames in the U.S. are in between and bring a couple of problems into the mix. The first problem is that any drone brood built around the edges may crush a queen from time to time because it is deeper than normal worker brood. Another is that 35mm spacing significantly encourages swarming.

I deliberately manage my bees by pulling spring splits from all strong colonies. I usually get a full crop of honey from the parent hive and nearly as much from the split. Bees cluster between frames in layers of 2, 3, or 4 bees. 32mm spacing allows only 2 layers of bees between the combs which forces the rest of the cluster to spread out and cover more brood combs. For a given size cluster, 32mm frames give a 27% increase in brood area which shaves a 10 to 12 week buildup period down to 9 weeks in my climate.

What about 38mm spacing as was advocated by Dadant? It has the advantage of significantly reducing the spring swarming tendency. This gives 4 layers of bees between each pair of combs resulting in less total brood area covered. The result is significantly retarded spring buildup which leads to less swarming. As the weather moderates in spring, this is less of an impediment so that by early summer a colony on 38mm frames will have similar bee counts to colonies with 32mm or 35mm spacing. So if your spring flow is very early, use 32mm spacing and if it is late or very late, use 38mm spacing. Regardless of what spacing is used, there will be problems with cells reworked to drone size if the bees natural tendency is not accommodated by giving them some drone cells.

 

[Patrick1]

Perhaps you would, Patrick.
I’m sure you know exactly what Roger breeds.
We have beekeepers from Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, The Philippines, Thailand and South Africa as well as all over Europe as members. Are you suggesting these people don’t post?
It’s a credit to this great forum that we can all indulge our beekeeping experiences from all over the world.

That’s intentionally misconstruing my comments, It is always fascinating to hear from people around the world, bees are international, my point is understanding local bees is more important than listening/reading about bees in a faraway place to those beekeepers starting out or wishing to expand their knowledge base.

We forget that beekeepers even on this site like to learn from local beekeepers sometimes.

 

[Anthony Appleyard]

Farmers say that "the bull is half the herd". Likewise it could be said that "the drones that a virgin queen mates with, are half of her future hive".

 

[victor meldrew]

.......now you say....

he‘s been Queen rearing successfully for decades . I’ve had Queens off Supersbees !

 

[victor meldrew]

About humans it is often said that to rear children is not clever. But hormones call.

Take that to its limit means ‘ there’s no such thing as love . It’s a biological urge

 

[user 20297]

he‘s been Queen rearing successfully for decades . I’ve had Queens off Supersbees !

I've been beekeeping for many months and I'm not psychic.

 

[victor meldrew]

I've been beekeeping for many months and I'm not psychic.

Lighten up . Beekeeping doesn’t require psychic qualities.

 

[user 20297]

Lighten up . Beekeeping doesn’t require psychic qualities.

That's what the doctor and Derren Brown told me.

 

[rolande]

The result is significantly retarded spring buildup

Most definitely not been my experience with md hives.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

The first problem is that any drone brood built around the edges may crush a queen from time to time because it is deeper than normal worker brood. Another is that 35mm spacing significantly encourages swarming.

Absolute balderdash in both cases I'm sorry

 

[Fusion_power]

Easy to call it balderdash, but have you done the legwork to find out? Tell us about the time you kept bees on 32mm frames or for that matter on 38mm frames?

Have you never rolled a queen when removing frames that have protruding drone cells?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Easy to call it balderdash, but have you done the legwork to find out

yes, you were talking a load of rubbish about 35mm frames - which is not true.
Par for the course really

 

[Bumbling Keeper]

I would suggest that actual scientific research to-date has just explored the tip of the iceburg of all the areas of bee lore we're aware - and unaware - of. And actually, I would venture to suggest that many of us who've spent a lifetime out in the environment have a lot of pretty valid 'observations'. I would also suggest that a good number of actual 'scientific' studies have been so narrow in scope - necessarily because the broader the cast of net the more difficult it is to isolate specific comparisons and define results - that their end result forms just one tiny piece of the overall puzzle which is too specific to be of wider use without a load of caviats and exceptions.
Hearing other's observations is totally valid for me because you also get the defining criteria, the specifics of other associated factors and the observers' own comparative commentary, some of which you can compare and contrast directly with your own observations.
Regarding the behaviour of a mass of drones at some point in the air; I would suggest that very few of us have really got up into the melee to observe how they're behaving 'in the wild'. I haven't yet heard of a scientific study that's tagged and tracked all the drones and virgin queens prior to their involvement in a free-for-all mating flight, then collected the dead (mated) drones afterwards and done a genetic examination of the queens' return cargo. The task would be huge and so expensive, but really, that's the only way I can see of us ever getting a scientific definitive study. Anyone got an update on that?

 

[rolande]

Tell us about the time you kept bees on 32mm frames or for that matter on 38mm frames?

All of our modified dadant are on inch and half because *that* is the correct spacing for a modified dadant. What do you want me to tell you about it? One thing for certain, after the total nonsense you wrote earlier about 38mm causing 'retarded' spring build up I doubt anything I say from this point on will agree with your observations.

 

[Fusion_power]

One thing for certain, after the total nonsense you wrote earlier about 38mm causing 'retarded' spring build up I doubt anything I say from this point on will agree with your observations.

Have you tried any other frame spacing than 38mm? If so, what are the reasons for using 38mm? How long from the start of spring buildup until your spring flow starts? As with JBM, if you have not tried any other spacing than standard 38mm Dadant or 35mm Langstroth, do you feel you have experience to critique what others have tried and found works? This is the kind of logic that says "I've never flown in a rocket therefore rockets have never gone to the moon".

My conditions are very specific. Spring buildup starts in early February with early pollen collection, fruit bloom is usually late February or early March with pear and then apple, and the main flow starts April 15th to 25th. There is usually a late spring flow that starts about May 20th and lasts until June 10th. We have a nectar dearth from mid June until mid August and then get fall flows from goldenrod and aster. That gives 10 weeks from start of buildup until the main spring flow hits. If I run 38mm frames, my bees don't reach peak strength until the main flow is 2 weeks along and by that time keeping them from swarming is difficult. If I run them on 32mm frame spacing, they reach peak strength the second week of April. I pull a split out of the strongest colonies and usually get a good crop of honey from the parent and some from the split. This usually gives an extra colony plus a couple of boxes of honey to sell.

Dadant was working in an area with 12 or more weeks of spring buildup before the main flow. He specifically credited his hive and his frames with reduced swarming. He was 100% correct. The large hive with 38mm frame spacing reduces swarming. But he did not understand "why" it worked. Do you?