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Subject: Re: Strange drones.
 
<Kerry Clark says:>
 
Subject:      Re: Strange sighting of drone.
 
   Although the fall (with some hives even after a few days of bad weather
   in summer) eviction of drones is sometimes a dramatic event, the timing
 
   In late winter, however (early April here) there are sometimes quite a
   few drones in "medium" sized, healthy colonies which are rearing just a
   frame or two of worker brood (very unlikely that they have reared the
   drones since winter). I suppose I couldn't rule out the possibility that
   the drones wintered in queenless colonies, then drifted to stronger
   ones....).
 
<end quotes>
 
    Hello Kerry,
 
      You got that right, drones are extreme drifters. I did some
practical work restricting drone flight for weeks in the spring. When
the drones were allowed free flight...hundreds of thousands took wing
blacking the sky and with a mighty roar of flapping wings...a sight and
sound you would have to see to believe.. Few of these fellows ever
returned to the apiary. I have often wondered if some poor beekeeper
up wind had a yard starve out because of the unexpected guests who
showed up for dinner, or if these guys just flew on and on until they
ran out of fuel..
 
      Anyway there is one thing that drones have done for us here in
the states besides their duty, and thats equally spread the varroa mite
to all our bees, and most likely have been spreading other pests and
diseases since day one, but little can I find on this in the literature,
but I have yet to read it all.
 
      There is a difference between different strains of bees as far as
drifting, the darker seem to drift less, but again I don't recall
anything in the literature on any difference between drones.
 
      One thing that is for certain the hives that produce the drones
are not necessarily the ones' that will house them. Drones may be
deficient in eye sight, but they are great at finding the hives with
the stinky queens.
 
      Over the years I have had many different styles of drones thanks
to some breeders from daughters of UC Davis queens. Different eye colors
and the like, but once I did find a hive that produced drones with no
hair at all. They were interesting to look at so I sent a few around
for others to play with, learned how hard it is to ship them, lazy
guys won't feed themselves, and if shipped with workers, after a day
or so the workers won't feed them under stress or maybe without hair
they could not regulate their body temp. or something.<G>
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