For those of you who have drone-filled colonies in February, check the
queen's spermatheca. If you don't know how to do this, find someone who does.
Perhaps Dave Knox at Beltsville Bee Lab will check a few.
I last saw large scale drone production in winter during the winter after our
last bad eastern U.S. winter (77-78). Tens of thousands of queens were
producing drones. Upon checking, queens had a shortage of sperm in the
spermathecae.
Several people trace the matter back to the conditions under which the queens
were mated in the South during the cold winter. There were drones in colonies
at the time of mating, but either they were not producing much sperm, a
reflection of pollen shortage, or their flight was restricted. Since many
queen producers remembered poor pollen supplies during mating, we concluded
that there was a shortage of sperm in the otherwise healthy drones. Sperm are
produced during the larval stage, and pollen is necessary then. Pollen is
also needed for proper maturation of the drone as  an adult. Thus, there is a
two week period in which any major pollen shortage -- even a few days -- can
result in substandard drones.
Since there is some sperm in the drones, they queens mate and produce good
colonies during the summer. They then run out of sperm (the spermatheca
becomes more transparent rather than dense cream in color) and start
producing a large number of drones.
This may or may not be the issue. Let's hear some hive inspection reports on
the ratio of worker:drone brood, quantities of each, presence of drone brood
in worker cells, and spermatheca checks.
Oh yes, removing the spermatheca does kill the queen.
Larry Connor
Wicwas Press -- [log in to unmask]
(Ran former Dadant Starline/Midnite program from 1976-1980).