Honey flow South East QLD

[JeffH]

Is it drone brood getting kicked out? or adult drones? Another theory could be that SHBs got a chance to lay eggs in the drone brood. So the workers are getting on with dealing with the situation before it gets out of hand. I have seen that happen in the past, which is why I try to avoid large areas of drone comb in the brood.

PS @Brad13. Up this way, there’s lots in flower & coming into flower. Bloodwood trees are giving beautiful displays of flowers. The Buckinghamias all over the place a heavily in bud & flower. I’m sure it must be similar down there. cheers

[Faroe]

Another way to think about it could be:
The drones are there to mate with the queen (a new queen, normally in Spring), now the colony doesn’t need all the drones around, so they are getting kicked out of the house.
(They don’t do any work, and eat honey basically).

[Brad13]

Hi Jeff, it’s adult drones getting the boot. This hive is my strongest and seems to manage SHB quite well and I rarely find more than 1or 2 running free during an inspection so it looks like population control.
One of the benefits of an older town/suburb such as this is that it has a wide variety of well established native/introduced flowering trees and shrubs so I anticipate a close to year round nectar flow.
Cheers

[Brad13]

I’ve just had two boys return to the house after holidays and after seeing the pantry and fridge being decimated I can sympathise with the workers

[Brad13]

Thanks Faroe, I’m loving the learning that I’ve had to do since becoming interested after seeing a Flow video last year and deciding to give beekeeping a go.
The actions that are required can range from on the spot to months in advance so it’s great mental exercise and this forum is a terrific learning tool that is a credit to yourself and the company.
It’ll be interesting to see during the next few inspections whether they continue to produce drone brood or fill the cells with honey.
Edit, just finished watching this.

A new upload today that shows how an unmanaged hive populates with some good graphs that show a definite ratio preference between worker/drone brood.
After watching this i think i upset the population ratio by removing around 20% of the workers, with the capped drone brood that was present now emerging i may have inadvertently kicked off a mass fratricide.whoops

[Brad13]

The bees are going nuts for these dragon fruit flowers in my neighbors yard.