At 11:54 AM 2/20/97 -0500, Larry Conner wrote:
>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:
 
I think you are right on. My colony with the drones has about 25% worker
brood in worker cells and the rest are all drones--in worker cells. So many
of the drones are small sized.  I will check her spermathecae when the
season gets along a little more and I can reliably replace her.  Thanks for
the input
 
Jim Amrine