Hello George,
 You asked how does one evaluate excessive drone populations?
That seems to be difficult to define. Particularly since a colony's
drone populations varies significantly.
  Perhaps I should rephrase the sentence to say: The drone activity was
what a person normally sees. When you watch a colony in the early
evening the drones are returning and entering the hive. This is what I
refer to as typical of a colony. The two colonies referred to do not
have any noticeable drones returning at dusk.
 In April I was in the midst of requeening a colony with a failed queen.
This colony had a lot of drones present in comparison to my other hives.

  My copy of The hive and the Honey Bee state that drones are tolerated
until the nectar becomes scarce. Here in south central Pennsylvania the
nectar is not very scarce in May.
  Also the book states that drones live about 54 days. Compared to the
42 days of a worker (which does vary thru out the season) there should
still be drones left from the original nuc.
  But perhaps the drones are three weeks older than the workers when the
nuc was boxed and shipped. Does someone who works with preparing nucs
answer this question?
  I went back and reviewed my photos from May 8. I like to take my
digital camera with me when examining a colony. Taking pictures of the
frames makes it easier to go back and check out a colony.
  These nucs had drones present on the frames. There was only a few
capped drone cells. The other had most of the drone comb filled with
honey. This is probably because I kept syrup on the nucs pretty much
always up till I moved them into a 10 frame deep on May 8.
  All other factors aside, does a colony exclude drones from a hive in
the middle of a nectar flow? And do they exclude old drones from a hive?

Thomas J. Martin
Shippensburg, Pa

George I enjoyed the opportunity to meet you earlier this year at the
bee meeting. (Howard County fairgrounds)

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