These aren't the Drones You are Looking for
- Donna Brown
- Jul 14, 2021
- 4 min read
Updated: Aug 9, 2021
HIVE INSPECTIONS: 06/26/21 & 07/10/21
There is no drama at the apiary. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
So much so that we finally felt comfortable bringing the dogs back to the ranch. I do think they remember the area around the bees as “the place where the flies are super prickly” and for the most part stayed at a safe distance. MoMo even found a shady place amongst the trees, close enough to see us but well out of the danger zone.
The bees continue to be so calm and gentle that I am now calling the Spice Girlz the Nice Girlz. But it's just eerie after the mayhem of the last couple of months. So I went looking for answers.
I am a member of several bee groups on Facebook — these are a phenomenal source of information, equipment and advice – and have often posted pictures and/or questions with great success. (Beekeepers [“Beeks”] are an amazingly helpful and supportive group of people. We love to talk about bees to other Beeks, anyone who is interested in bees, or pretty much anyone who will listen!) The chatter lately has been very similar to what we are experiencing at Nob Hill. It seems that a lot of hives are more anemic and smaller than normal this year — and the consensus is that it’s directly related to the huge amount of rain we have had this spring, especially early in the season. Rain is great to make things grow, such as flowers that contain pollen and nectar, but the rain also obliterates the food supply these pollinators depend on to survive. It simply washes away their food. We have seen a good supply of stored pollen (which is the main source of protein for bees and is fed to developing larvae) in most of our hives, but I can’t help feeling that the brood production is not what it should be this time of year. It’s good to know that others are experiencing and and feeling the same way as we do.
During the last two inspections we have seen capped brood and larva in all hives. Even if you don’t lay eyes on the queen, seeing these are good indicators she is alive and well. Based on the stages of brood, if you see larva (which looks like a curled grub worm) you know an egg has been laid within the last week. And if you can see an egg (which can be difficult due to their minuscule size) a Queen has been there within the last 3 days. My fear lately has been that with the sheer lack of bees — the hives just don’t seem to be growing and the brood is so spotty — that we were queenless in a few hives. That’s me - the ultimate worrywart. I know you are thinking “But you just said if you see eggs and larva - no problem!” As I mentioned in a previous post, I was concerned we had a laying worker bee scenario. The eggs from a laying worker can only develop into drones because they are unfertilized, if they are cared for at all. And, often enough, a hive can have multiple workers laying eggs, in which case the the brood cells could even contain multiple eggs. A meticulous Queen would never dream of such a thing as to mess up a pristine cell in this manner.
Why and how do worker bees start laying eggs?
The answer is pheromones. It's well known the Queen bee’s pheromones are essential to a colony. This royal pheromone actually suppresses the development of ovaries in female bees. When a Queen is in the hive, workers remain infertile. It takes about three weeks after a queen is no longer in the hive for a worker’s ovaries to mature. But that’s not the only pheromone in play. The primary chemical suppressant that keeps workers working and not laying is the pheromone from the open brood itself, i.e. the uncapped larva. Once a colony has laying workers and no queen, it is a difficult situation to remediate. It requires introducing frames with larva from other colonies over time until the "open brood" pheromones begin to take over and the girls start to raise their own queen again. Fascinating stuff!
If this were indeed the case — that we have one or more laying workers in some of the hives — we would/should, therefore, see an unusually high amount of drones. But we did not. In fact, I haven’t seen a predominant number of drones or drone cells in the last month. That, coupled with the fact that we have managed to spot at least one queen in different hives during the last several inspections, my anxiety is waning a bit. I think our hives are doing as well as can be expected given the unprecedented weather conditions (read as massive rain) we have experienced this year and out inexperience. We have learned a great deal in the past 15 months of beekeeping, but I know it’s merely the tip of the iceberg of what is yet to learn.
And a lot of little lives are counting on us to help a sister out.
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