Newbie beekeepers often wonder how to get rid of the drones in the hive? It is quite difficult to give an unambiguous answer to this question without plunging into the topic.
Before talking about control measures, it is important to know who they are and understand the significance of their activities for the life of the bee family.
The content of the article
- 1 The value of the drones
- 2 Number in the bee family
- 3 There are many drones in the hive – what to do?
The value of the drones
Drones are temporary members of the male bee colony. They have no sting and cannot defend their nest from external enemies. They are also unable to extract honey and pollen, secrete wax, bring water or propolis to the family.
In the picture: 1) male drone; 2) the female queen; 3) an ordinary bee.
However, the importance of males in the life of a bee colony cannot be overestimated – the survival of bees as a biological species directly depends on their activities.
So what do mature drones do in the hive? Their main task is to fertilize a young uterus! Without a male seed, not a single bee, not a single queen can be born.
The survival rate of the queen depends on the number of males during the mating flight – the larger the cloud of drones hovering around the bee “queen”, the less likely it will be eaten by some insectivorous bird.
In addition, during the breeding season, males actively participate in heating the brood in the morning and allow flight bees to go early for nectar and pollen, thereby increasing the honey productivity of the family.
Number in the bee family
Another important point – the question of how many drones there should be in the hive is also impossible to answer unequivocally!
Each family regulates the number of males intuitively, in accordance with its needs. Their number in the nest depends on the breed, the strength of the family, the age of the uterus, the quality of the combs, the state of the nest.
The number of “male population” in the bee colony ranges from several hundred to 3-000 individuals. In the summer, in a strong nest of males, there are up to 4 percent of the entire family.
This is what the expulsion of males looks like …
Drones hatch in the second half of spring and summer. After the end of the honey harvest, the bees stop feeding them, and then, weakened by hunger, they are generally expelled from the hives.
This adjustment of the male population takes place without any intervention from the beekeeper.
There are many drones in the hive – what to do?
Experienced beekeepers have two diametrically opposed opinions regarding drone control:
- Complete non-interference of the beekeeper in the number of the population of “men” in the family.
- Fighting them with the aim of their complete destruction.
Those beekeepers who believe that males eat an unacceptable amount of honey use the following methods to combat them:
1.Cutting drone honeycombs from sushi in frames.
The method is effective – honey is saved, but not always effective, since often in place of the destroyed tinder cells, bees stretch the same ones. And they can spoil the new foundation in exactly the same way.
2. Cutting of a drone (humpbacked) brood.
The method is ineffective, since a few days after the cells are cleaned, they will again be seeded with drone larvae – a lot of honey will again go to feed them. The only plus of this method is that the Varroa mite deposited on the tinder brood is simultaneously destroyed.
3.Sitting with tweezers near the arrival board or generally standing above the frames in an open hive and mechanical destruction of males.
The least efficient way in terms of labor costs for the beekeeper! In addition, prolonged opening of the hive can lead to cooling of the usual brood and losses in honey collection due to the need for the flight bee to participate in restoring the required microclimate and temperature in the hive.
4. Installing a homemade dronetrap in the form of a tin strip above the taphole or a factory-made dronetrap, shown in the photo below.
Males freely leave the hive, but cannot return back. From the point of view of saving honey, the method is ineffective, since a huge amount of feed is spent precisely on feeding the drone larvae. Also, during a bribe, the drone trap can interfere with the active summer of bees and reduce the amount of honey brought.
5. Use of pollen traps.
In their design there are special tubes through which the drones fly out of the hive, but cannot return back. The method contains all the disadvantages of the previous one, but the collection of pollen itself is a highly profitable production of bee products and more than compensates for the losses in honey.
6. Installation of building frames.
Two bars are nailed to ordinary frames without wire, to which strips of wax 1 cm wide are attached. They are installed next to the brood frames. Positive aspects of the method:
- here, bees tend to pull on tinder combs – humpback brood can be cut out in advance;
- it is easy to determine the beginning of swarming by the state of the building framework;
- additionally, there is a fight against varroatosis.
The biggest plus of this method is the receipt of an additional amount of such an important and highly profitable bee product as wax, as well as the almost complete absence of tinder cells on ordinary foundation.
Of the minuses, it can be noted:
- high labor costs of the beekeeper, especially in large apiaries;
- irrational use of labor costs of the uterus for the constant sowing of tinder cells with unfertilized testicles.
Please note that there are many drones in the hive with a pathological state of the bee colony. There is no uterus in it, as can be easily seen with a careful examination of the frames. There are indeed a lot of males here. This is the so-called tinder colony, whose bees begin to lay unfertilized eggs.
Team . in its apiary, it fights an excess of males only by using pollen traps. For the rest, we rely on the natural instinct of the colonies to regulate the number of males they themselves need in the hives.
