So nobody thought much of my mite stress causes drone keeping theory. Lets see for winter drones we came up with queens pooping out, AHB genes, big populations keep some drones anyway, seeing more because we are looking more and of course the weather. Please bear with me while I think outloud here, it seems I use to normally see most drone kicking out behavior in Sept. and Oct. The last few years Ive been noticing fresh dead drone piles in Nov. and Dec. and in looking into hives in Feb. and March Im seeing that these bees are holding onto drones all winter. Now maybe they always did and I am just looking more but it seems odd that I would get it into my head that most of the drones get kicked out in the fall anywho hows this for a thought, if you stress out a plant it will bloom trying to reproduce, do bees do the same thing,could they be holding on to reproductives because of mite stress? Yes when the weather gets bad and the food shuts off drones get tossed but do colonies toss drones with a dwindeling population from disease or mites? Interesting discussion on colonies being up against each other didnt Peng do a study in Canada on drifting bees what was it 10 or 20 percent less honey from apiaries with straight rows. Funny how bees dont seem to mind much being next to each other I found six feral swarms in a upstairs floor of a light house with entrances all within a few inches of each other. Those apis dorsata colonies seem to hang close to each other to. Didnt honeybees evolve from solitary bees that made their homes next to each other as a protective mechinism. Which brings up another point do bees work up a feeding frenzy when the hives are bunched up or is that just a rationalization to orchardist to keep the drops bigger?