Peter Chiang Mai asked
"My thought here was could this be a deficient queen that simply needed
replacing. But then I wondered why this was happening on both colonies, it
seems improbable that that both queens would exhibit the same behaviour at
the same time. Does anyone have a view as to what else this could be?"
Peter, these colonies sound to me to be quite normal. The presence of normal
worker and drone brood, and a large population of drones in strong, active
hives, indicates that the pollen supply has been good for some time,
although the onset of the wet season may have brought those floral
conditions to a close. Do you know what the floral source has been for the
past 4-8 weeks? In Chapter 2 of his book "Breeding Super Bees", the late
Steve Taber has a nice table relating observations on drone stages in the
colony and conclusions that can be drawn about the pollen supply to the
colony. His explanations of how pollen availability and utilisation can be
inferred from what we see when we look at the drone population dynamic are
very insightful, and valuable.
It appears to me that you have not described the classic "drone layer", or a
"failing" queen trending towards drone layer, although from what you have
told us, its not really possible to conclude anything definitive about the
queens. However, it sounds more likely that they have been doing the right
things under what appear to have been good conditions.
I suspect the reason you have not had more responses from the list is that
we temperate region beeks are reluctant to venture into "diagnosticating"
(!) on your observations in the tropical (or is it sub-tropical?)
environment. I for one however, am very interested in all your observations
about how mellifera bees perform in that environment. For example, I am
curious about drones survival in that climate. In the temperate regions with
a definite winter period, the drone population has a definite seasonality,
with little or no drone production in the colder months, and even rejection
of the adult drones to avoid the nutritional cost of sustaining colony
members that are past their use-by date and are essentially no longer
required. Does the same thing happen where you are, or are drones present in
the hive year-round? I ask this because my understanding of the prime reason
why drones supply fluctuates, is in fact pollen supply, not environmental
temperature.
PeterD
in Western Australia, where sometimes last seasons old drones can still be
in the hives in the following spring!
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