Why drone comb at the bottom?

[colintinto]

Curious - it was suggested to me that I should replace a BB frame with a drawn super in one of my colonies as a way of getting the Varroa count down. I realise that the Varroa mite prefers a drone cell, but the question is why do the bees choose to build drone comb off the bottom of the super frame?

They did, and once capped I chopped it off and fed it to the hens!

Colin

 

[Nellie]

Standard foundation forces worker sized cells so if you give them space in the brood box, or supers for that matter, space to draw their own comb they'll make drone cells to redress the balance.

 

[Midland Beek]

In the wild you would get a lot more drone brood in a bee nest, but we beekeepers meddle with Mother Nature's plans and give the bees worker base foundation because we want our bees to rear workers to collect honey and not drones to eat it. Give them the 'choice' of what type of comb to build in spring and bees will invariably build drone comb.

 

[Dishmop]

why do the bees choose to build drone comb off the bottom of the super frame?

So the drones dont have so far to go to the toilet..

 

[Chris Luck]

Give them the 'choice' of what type of comb to build in spring and bees will invariably build drone comb.

Whilst I agree that "natural" colonies have more drones because we don't kill them it isn't the case that there is an excess, far from it. What results as anyone with a TBH or Warré will confirm is a far more balanced structure with just as many females as in manipulated colonies. Fair enough, drones will consume honey but what I have noticed is that even in April workers start killing drones if there are too many and there appears to be quite a strict control process as one would expect, they are wild insects after all and capable of managing their own affairs.

Chris

 

[colintinto]

Was about to ask about those that work without foundation - was reading about that this afternoon.

 

[Tom Bick]

I have started this year experimenting without foundation and it is surprising the amount of drone comb they produce.

In one hive a 14x12 I had 60% just wired frames and the remainder foundation and the bees produced about 4” at the bottom of the just wired frames as drone comb with the result is 100s if not 1000s of drones in this hive.

I think the time of year influenced this as I shook swarmed them into the 14x12 hive early in the year and the bees were on a rapid build up at the time and had drones on their mind.

I will look close to see if I see what Chris said about the drones getting thrown out early as that sounds interesting, I am also as an experiment going to remove some of the drone comb to see if the bees now later in the season replace with drone or worker comb. As they are I suspect influenced with the time of year as to the balance of worker over drone comb ect.

I have found this no foundation approach interesting to me and it gives a different insight into the workings of the hive and so far very happy with the results and intend to continue, the only slight problem is I have a standard hive in just wired frames with no foundation and they have needed a bit of encouragement to build the comb straight but with manipulation of the frames and the odd push and shove otherwise all is good.

 

[Chris Luck]

It's important, as I'm sure you know, to make sure the hive is spot on in all directions vertical/horizontal, then the comb will be in the frames even if it varies a bit.

Spirit level job.

Chris

 

[Skyhook]

I believe one reason is that, if the weather turns cold and they can't cover all the brood, it matters less to lose drone brood.

 

[Tom Bick]

It's important, as I'm sure you know, to make sure the hive is spot on in all directions vertical/horizontal, then the comb will be in the frames even if it varies a bit.

Spirit level job.

Chris

Not perfectly level Chris but as close to it as possible as my eye con do lol.

I don’t know where but I remember someone talking about bees in the wild building comb to I think magnetic fields or something similar?