Just sighted a mass drone eviction from one of our flow hives.
Upon forum searching found that this maybe a food shortage but where we are located in the southern highlands of Nsw this doesn’t seem like a straight forward answer.
The hive in question has just had a new brood box placed in between first brood and flow frames would this have any significant impact?
Thanks for any help
JC
Hi JC, it wouldn’t hurt for us to see some photos of what you’re seeing. Is it drone brood, or adult drones?
I can’t help but wonder if the drone eviction event occurred as a result of you adding the second brood box.
Maybe some drone brood got damaged, which will result in the bees cleaning it up & discarding the brood in the process.
Another possibility is hive beetle activity in drone brood which will also result in discarded drone brood.
Thanks for your help Jeff I will endeavour to see if I can add some pictures to help everyone out. Definitely not drone brood mate all evictions were alive and well drones.
Ah well, that rules brood out. Maybe the colony doesn’t want to support so many drones at this point in time. Drones are fairly dispensable. The colony will make more when it feels it can support them.
Many thanks mate we will take it all in and continue our epic bee adventure always something new.
You’re welcome @jlc313131 I agree, “always something new”. My epic bee journey has been going for 34 years now, & I’m constantly learning new things.
I’m wondering if adding that extra brood box was a good idea at this point in time. The bees will use resources to fill it, in preference to filling the Flow frames.
To my mind, bees evict drones because they reckon that there’s no chance of any virgin queens around, needing to get mated. Drones are the key to any colony passing on it’s dna, which is high on a colonies list of priorities.
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