-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Darrell [log in to unmask]

 What would DCA's look like if you saw one? 
 
There's one at Gormanston and every year at the FIBKA Summer School somebody (it was Karl Showler but Ruary Rudd  or Micheal Mac GiollaCoda has done it lately) walks around the school golf course and hurley pitches with a fishing rod to which is attached a phial with queen substance and when the right spot is reached it is buzzed by a comet of drones. Karl's supply originated from Colin Butler who first described queen substance, but I don't know what is used now.


The 19th century author Richard  Jefferies  in 'Bevis, the Story of a Boy' (which I first read over half a century ago and must do again) mentions the 'midsummer hum' and I reckon that this was likely a drone congregation area.

I expect you've all read Beowulf Cooper's book and seen the diagrams of various types of DCA.  The one that I think I have found was on a wooded hilltop (Lewesdon Hill, the highest point in Dorset) where the midsummer hum was so loud as almost to be intrusive but the cause was lost above the tree cover.

Chris




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