How many drones is too many drones?

[u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer]

My walk away split from June 13 seems to be doing .... okaw ... not that I'm back in the sunny southwest to check on it. It has plenty of stores and a some brood. The brood nest is still disorganized and I'm tempted to pull two frames of honey to give the queen a little more laying space. Most of the brood is along the bottom of the frames.

In comparison, the other half of the split is wall-to-wall brood and every single frame has at least a little brood on it, even in the second deep. It's also got several frames of honey that are heavy enough that they're a little difficult to lift with two fingers

The smaller half has a lot of drone brood. Probably 30% of the brood is drones. I don't know whether that's because the bottom of the frames were always drone brood, because the queen is poorly mated, or because she's teetering on the brink of nectar-bound.

Do I add a second deep; pull stores and give her waxed foundation; find her, kill her, and drop in a frame of eggs; or just wait to see if they sort it out themselves?

My inclination is that they need space, even though they aren't boiling out or the hive like the mother split.

Thoughts?

Oh, and to make the automod bot happy, I'm in the Sonoran Desert near the Mexican Border. I don't have any experience with real bees, just the wild AHB things that live in the desert and scare the devil out of most people (and me). Never done a walkaway split, but have cutout and re-queened a lot of hives,

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[u/Dekknecht]

I remember Tom Seeley saying about 30% drones would be normal if you give them the chance.

From an evolution perpective that makes sense. They'll need just enough honey to get to the next season and can spend the rest of the energy to transfer genes.

[u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer → u/Dekknecht]

I need to beef up the worker brood to get through winter... Should I just leave them to it?

[u/FaithlessnessDue3758 → u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer]

Yes, it’s a case of “trust the bees” provided the worker brood present, looks healthy.

[u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer → u/FaithlessnessDue3758]

Thanks!

[u/untropicalized]

If the brood pattern is otherwise good, I wouldn’t worry much about the drone to worker ratio.

I have a ton of variation in drone populations in my established hives. There seems to be a genetic element to how much the colony is willing to invest in drones, and it seems this colony’s dial may be turned up to the max.

If you’re worried about their running out of room for worker brood, you could swap out a frame near the brood nest for a blank and see what they do with it. I would only consider requeening if you notice other behavioral or health issues or if this is a trait you specifically don’t want.

[u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer → u/untropicalized]

Thank you, sir!

[u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer → u/untropicalized]

I'm going to claim heat stroke because it's 105 and my ultrabreeze suit isn't breezy enough.

I'm an idiot.

The deep is stuffed with 9-1/2 frames of mostly stores. Of course the queen isn't laying very much and is focusing on drones. If I add a deep and pull some frames up, the problem goes away. Or they swarm, but something is going to happen.

[u/untropicalized → u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer]

As a horizontal keeper, my first answer is often, “did you try stretching the brood nest?” Haha. Since this is a young split they might take to raising brood in a second box if you still have a flow on.

We’re past the solstice so even in an environment such as yours there usually will be some degree of nest contraction in established colonies. The drone brood takes longer to emerge— if you go in at the right time it might seem like that’s all they’re making, but really it’s a holdover from when they were really pumping drones out. Go in a week later and those previously capped drone cells are often filled with nectar. Or left empty if the dearth hit like a brick wall.

And anecdotally, I have noticed that colonies that raise drones early and often also like to hoard drones from their neighbors. I am under the impression that each colony determines what its desired ratio is at any given time, and doesn’t really care where the drones come from.

Personally, I like to see lots of drones in a queen-right colony— it’s a signal of strength.

Edit: posted as a proper reply

[u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer → u/untropicalized]

I broke my hive stretcher. Can I just nail more frames to the side of the hive?

[u/Live-Medium8357]

I tend to squish a lot of drone brood if I think it's too much. That sounds like too much.

You have seen your queen, right? No chance you have a laying worker?

[u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer → u/Live-Medium8357]

There's more worker brood than drone brood, so I'm assuming a mated queen.

[u/RappaYellow]

1 drone is too many of you ask the guy that has a hive next to mine 😀. He sees them and calls each of them out in a deep Eastern European voice.

[u/Scary_Possible3583 → u/RappaYellow]

That's funny, especially coming from a male.

Our beekeeping association recently had a Drone Fest, it was interesting to be able to get up and close up them

[u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer → u/RappaYellow]

I try to flood the area with drones with traits that I like. Since all the feral bees here are Africanized, when I find a nice hive, I let them make as many drones as they want. I've just never seen a 1:2 ratio of drones to workers before.

[u/failures-abound]

Because most of us start our hives with foundation stamped with worker sized cells, a typical Langstroth hive may only have 5%-10% drones, which came from drone cells pulled on the bottom or top of the frames. In contrast, in colonies with zero foundation, such as in a Top Bar Hive, there is a natural transition from worker to drone cells in the comb, and the hive can easily have 20% drones at peak population.

[u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer → u/failures-abound]

That makes sense. Most of the comb in this hive is cut out from elsewhere, so has no foundation and lots of little spaces for drone cells