Consider the drone. Last May, we were marking drones to teach soldiers how to mark queens. We maintain 6 hives at our local zoo as an exhibit and to sell honey from those hives as a fund raiser for the zoo. It occurred to me that it would be interesting to test the degree to which drones move from colony to colony so we marked 20 drones from each colony; a different color for each colony. Then over the next weeks we observed whether the drones would appear in other colonies. Within two weeks, we observed drones from every other hive in all 6 hives. Not a very scientific study but perhaps the drone is a culprit in the varroa spread and the spread of other pathogens also. 4 of the hives are within 20 feet of the others and two are 4 feet apart and 200 yards from the other 4.
Gary

 

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