Where do mating flights occur?

[pnkemp]

Just popped up a nuc as a bait hive on the garage roof a couple of days ago, and very happy to see a few bees checking it out. Makes me feel a bit better about my hands on training with the local BKA being cancelled for the year.

But yesterday I noticed flying..rather erratically, across the garden about 3m in the air what looked at first glance like two bees locked together.

Could this have been a mating flight? Unfortunately by the time I put my infant son down to look closer they’d gone, but it was definitely two bees sized insects locked together.

Of course could have been a hornet having a snack on a poor bee...

 

[masterBK]

Hover flies are in mating mode at the moment and some superficially look like bees. Could have been solitary bees. Not bumbles which mate on the ground or on vegetation.

 

[BugsInABox]

The description I read of mating is never forgotten. Something like: on penetration all the fluid in the bees body moves to the endophallus such that the drone looses control of its body. Ejaculation is so explosive that the phallus detaches and the drone falls to the ground dead or moribund.

 

[Swarm]

Did you hear anything go 'pop'?

 

[Popparand]

Bees mate in Drone Congregation Areas at an altitude of around 90 feet. The experience is invariably fatal for the 1 in 1000 lucky (?) drones.

 

[gmonag]

But yesterday I noticed flying..rather erratically, across the garden about 3m in the air what looked at first glance like two bees locked together.

Probably Bee-flies. They mate in flight, back-to-back, so to speak.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Probably Bee-flies. They mate in flight, back-to-back, so to speak.

So they don't know whether they're going or coming?

 

[gmonag]

Like this:

https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/observation/5886/mating-bee-flies

 

[ericbeaumont]

Bees mate in Drone Congregation Areas at an altitude of around 90 feet. (?) drones.

That's what the book says, but I've seen that the deed is also done in the apiary, close to hives. Found mated drones on hive roofs and on the ground, and once on a landing board. Apiary Vicinity Mating, I believe it's called.

 

[Curly green finger's]

That's what the book says, but I've seen that the deed is also done in the apiary, close to hives. Found mated drones on hive roofs and on the ground, and once on a landing board. Apiary Vicinity Mating, I believe it's called.

I've allso seen it happen like this last year, I didn't think it was true.
Spent drones on the ground in my apiary.

A very interesting topic Apiary Vicinity Mating... I was reading about it happening at a bee breeders apiary he observed queen's leaving mini - nucs and the queen's being mated above his apiary , a very lucky beek watching a queen leave with her attending bee's emptying the mini nucs completely.

 

[For want of a better word]

I've allso seen it happen like this last year, I didn't think it was true.
Spent drones on the ground in my apiary.

A very interesting topic Apiary Vicinity Mating... I was reading about it happening at a bee breeders apiary he observed queen's leaving mini - nucs and the queen's being mated above his apiary , a very lucky beek watching a queen leave with her attending bee's emptying the mini nucs completely.

I witnessed an incredible "shag~fest" of apiary vicinity mating last year at one of BA's old haunts.... an isolated place up on Dartmoor.

Drones everywhere and an incredible burst of activity and noise... then silence

I think the drone congregation area event is as rare as it seems to be reported!

Chons da

 

[bobthecob]

Surely this is most likely to have been a honeybee taking a dead bee out to dispose of it away from the hive? I see this quite frequently - it's quite a striking sight.

 

[oliver90owner]

Spot on Bob. Someone who is thinking of the simple explanation.