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?