Hi All

A recent post by Robert Mann covered part of this, but I would add.

Drones obviously require resources for development and as their bodies are
roughly twice the volume of a worker bee they require nectar/honey at about
twice the amount for a worker and the pollen requirement to build a drone is
even more than double that of a worker. So the simple deduction that has
gone on for more than a century is that drones are a drain on colony
resources and should be curtailed by avoidance or culling.

As someone that has spent most of his beekeeping life trying to rear large
quantities of  fully fertile drones for mating. I have the following
observations...

If you try to limit the number of drones by removing a percentage of drone
comb the bees will spend much effort and resources building new drone cells
and making up the numbers.

If you leave them to raise as many drones as they want, they appear (my
subjective judgement) to go about their duties more diligently and actually
produce more honey than would be expected from that number of bees.

If you artificially increase the number of drone cells to the 50% mark the
bees will raise a high number of drones (which will be properly fertile if
adequate supplementary pollen is fed) at the same time surplus honey is
gathered by such colonies, although not in such quantity as would be
achieved without the drone raising.

Far from being a dead loss, 10% - 25% drones act as a catalyst and
comforter.
The drones keep the brood warm and allow a higher precentage of workers to
leave the hive for forage.

10% - 25% is quite a broad range and my be misleading... I accept that they
are the upper and lower limits, but I suggest that the distribution curve is
very steep sided for any given race of bees and that a centre point between
15% and 20 % is likely with the spread for any race being only plus or minus
3%.

It is difficult for me to judge, because a high proportion of colonies that
I have managed have had an above average number of drone cells, but (again
subjectively) I reckon 15 % -20% would be the range for my locality.

The books may say that combs with drone cells are ugly and inefficient and
should be recycled, but I reckon the bees are more knowledgable about what
is best for them. I see no justification for interferance or imposition of
any 'limit'.


Best Regards & 73s... Dave Cushman, G8MZY
Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website...
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman