How much Drone brood is too much

[grizzly]

On going through one of my hives saturday, i noticed there is a fair bit of drone brood, now this colony i had to split 3 ways last month, the queen is present and laying, at the moment the drone cells are in clumps, but there is certainly more than last time.

My gut tells me the bees may possibly know she is failing, and perhaps the cells from last time were supercedure and not swarm, i had a queen that was sterile in my first year, but then the drone cells were spread out all over the place, not clustered purposefully.

I have decided to leave & check again next week, but when we go through this "is she isnt she" period, is there a sure way of diagnosing ?.

What have you noticed in yours ?

 

[hedgerow pete]

i use 12 by 14 frames in my brood boxes with two of them being standards so she builds and lays drone at the bottom of those two good for varria control but i wanted a larger amount than normal as i wanted to do some queen rearing butyes the is more than normaly expected on mine as well but i can just cut it out to control the amount of drones