To a new beekeeper differentiating a drone from the queen can be a little confusing. I remember the first time we did a hive inspection with our first colony. It was after we not-so-gracefully dumped our package bees in the new, empty hive and sealed it up for two weeks hoping we did everything right. That two weeks seemed like forever! Waiting to see if the new colony had accepted their queen and liked their new home.
Being new to bee keeping, we didn’t know about other signs that signal that your queen has survived the initial installation. Things like the presence of eggs and brood. So we painstakingly removed each frame and scanned it until we found the queen among the worker bees.
Initially, we found several drones thinking they were the queen. After a while, we became confused and frustrated because to a novice beekeeper, a drone is large and queen-like.
Queen bee among many workers
Once we spotted her though, there was a striking difference.
Identifying a Drone
A. Drone
B. Queen
C. Worker
Drones can easily be distinguished from a worker bee but are often mistaken for the queen because of their large size.
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Drone Bee
The drone is a plump bee, they sort of remind me of a bumble bee. They also have large eyes, where the queen is more of a long, slender bee.
What role does the drone play in the hive?
Drones are the result of an unfertilized egg. In scientific terms they are considered a haploid, meaning they only have one set of chromosomes.
Drones do not collect nectar, forage for pollen or contribute to the daily inner workings of the hive. They live a somewhat easy life, benefiting from the worker bees who provide them with food and shelter.
While the life of a drone in the hive is pretty posh, most drones have a short lifespan and their death is a brutal business.
Drones will leave the hive and fly in mating swarms where they release pheromones as a group to attract queen bees looking to mate.
After mating with a queen, their barbed reproductive organ is ripped from the drone’s body resulting in death. (For more about the reproduction of bees, visit my post The Birds and the Bees of…Bees)
Drones who don’t die in mating are evicted from the hive in the fall and left to starve and freeze.
Why do Drones Equate Healthy Hive?
Drones are a sign of a successful hive. If the hive is healthy enough and producing enough food to accommodate free-loading drones, then you know you have a healthy hive.
Essentially you want the drone population to be around 15%.
Drones also ensure that your hive has genetic diversity, Which is important for helping to fight off diseases.
Drone larvae can also be cannibalized as bee food, providing essential proteins when pollen is in short supply.
What can bee keepers learn from the presence of drones in the hive?
If you do a hive inspection in the spring and see the presence of drones, this means that it’s swarming season.
This is the time when you need to start watching your hive for swarming activity. Drones mean that a new queens will be looking to mate and possibly take half the hive with her.
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20 Comments
can one give come into your hive?
Outstanding article. I do a lot of hands on training in my Apiary and the drones are the first bee I find and discuss because of their important role in the hive and a easy identifying factors of a thriving hive.
Thank you so very much! 🙂
Refreshing information, most of which I already knew and understood. The part about drones signifying a healthy I did not fully understand until reading this article. Thank you for printing it!
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed the article! 🙂
Drones do NOT ensure your “hive” has genetic diversity as stated. They are all exact genetic copies of the queen. Therefore, zero diversity. They may ensure ensure diversity in your apiary after they mate with a virgin queen from a different hive.
Your correct. We beekeepers are all interconnected . What we do for our bees affect the colones around us.
The drones affect the genetics of our neighbors bees. To the way we treat for mites
Yes, exactly. Thank you for clarifying this point. 🙂
Drones are Not exact copies of the queen, but Are the queen’s choice of the genetics of the drones she mated with And her own, the genetics she puts out into the world as a part of Her hive. Please read more on the scientifics of bees. As I installed my first swarm 2017, was told of their behavior at swarm-collection time, am guessing that these were more wild than a cast of a domestic hive, and didn’t see any drones, at any time or cast off come cold weather time. As of end of October, they put up 50 pounds of honey(that was left them to feed them for the winter), my mentor believes that my guess of them focusing on honey stores their first season, precluded them from making drones, which are expected to be produced 2018. My ‘wild-wild’ bees were active at cooler temps than are noted of domestic raised( wild-domestic), and May be more closely related to the earliest bees returned to North America, but they haven’t that coloring. Just a reminder that the Queen bee is somehow Able To Choose what her offspring are going to be, genetically.
One point not mentioned, a lot of drones in the hive may be a sign of problems, like a drone laying queen or laying workers.
Exactly. A Drone population of around 15% is ideal.
These notes are a great refresher. I have been keeping bees for years and these notes remind me of what I probably once knew. Thank you.
I am a new bee keeper and need all the help I can get.
[…] The major role of the drone bee is to mate with a virgin queen. A well-mated queen stores the semen of many different drones. Because, she mates with more than one male bee. This allows for good genetic diversity in the workers bees that she produces. These are the healthiest colonies of bees. (Drones and Colony Health) […]
Good information very helpful
i am seeing a few drones fly in hive. what dose that mean?
I have had bees for approximately 40 years running upto 500 hives
My question is about drones
If what your site is saying about Drones being evicted early winter is correct
If something were to happen to the queen over the winter period or on their first cleansing flight after winter, the workers would develop a new queen .
Given that your assumption that all Drones are forced out or die early winter , and the queen lays very little until the first reliable pollen flow
We would presume no Drones , as I mentioned above if something catastrophic happened to not only one queen but hundreds of queens ( ie as I have ) given the mass reductions in Bees overall wouldn’t you think that bees would have a back up plan rather than face possible extinction through the no Drone action that you people have published
I have never come to the assumption that all of my 500 hives are Droneless over winter
I lust say that for obvious reasons I don’t methodically check every bee over the winter period
But I as a responsible Apiarist ensure my bees have vast amounts of honey at least 13 frames of honey at start of winter
4 weeks into winter I feed my bees Pollen Substitute so thay are at their peck end of July in Victoria Australia for delivery to Almonds Pollination
My bees always arrive with 8to 12 frames of bees to pollination
I’m very aware that millions of people back yarders could not begin to comprehend that
So my end question to you people is how much certainty do you put into your comment about all drones being forced out of the hives
I have no doubt that if the hive is in a situation where they will starve as a lot do ( even the ones owned by so called bee keepers) if stores of food are at a minimum
But hey I’m just an Apiarist I take care of my bees
It a shame more people don’t
Drones are not just useful for the reproduction of queens…
they help regulate temperature and humidity…
To Debbie B.
It’s drones, not clones…
So they are not exact copies of the queen…
Drones are all a tiny different
Why do I see drones at the water source (a bird bath) with the workers.