I have looked at photos and videos and to be honest they do not show what things really are like. I was surprised at just how big the drones where when I first saw them capped and walking around in the hive. I have found a few little beetles in the tray but not seen any in the hive so just wanted to confirm if these were SHB.
Thank you in advance.
They are hive beetles. Worker bees will chase them incessantly, until they find somewhere to hide. In this case the bees chased them through the slots & into the tray. You mentioned drones. It’s worth pointing out that drones do no work in the hive, which includes defending, which is why you’ll read that I suggest to keep drone brood to a minimum.
Thanks, I was aware that the drones are not very useful they came with the colony that I retrieved from my friends water fountian, apparently so did those little hive beetles
I have taken the trays out to clean and because it was meant to be. Very hot over the next week or so I thought I’d leave them out, I’m not so sure about the leaving them out part now🤔.
I’m compelled to defend the drone.
Sure, they don’t do any of the tasks that the girls do. What would be the point of that? The boys have the primary task of passing on his grandparent’s genetics. There are also some with the opinion that the presence of drones has a soothing effect on the colony. The drone’s large bodies also assist in temperature regulation.
Why are genetics important? The long term success of a colony is proportional to the genetic diversity within the colony, that is, how many different drones mated with the queen. The latest research indicates the queen mates with 50-70 drones, not the 15-30 that text books have said for years.
Every bee is a specialist. Some are nectar foragers, others great wax producers, some combat particular pathogens and so on. The old belief that all worker bees do all jobs as they mature has been dispelled. By reducing the number of drones available for mating, what specialist behaviours are lost?
When I was young, queens were viable for five years, hence five colours to identify year of birth. Now, queens are often superseded in two or less years. Is it because they don’t mate with enough drones or don’t have the genetic diversity needed for the colony to thrive?
The bees know what they want. Every spring to mid summer, I install a frame or two with no foundation. If the bees want drones, they draw drone comb. Sometimes they fill it with food, but often they produce drones and contribute to the next generation of queens.
My goal is healthy bees with a side benefit of honey, but I believe that too much focus on honey production has led to a decline in quality mated queens.
Long live the humble drone!
When I suggest to keep drone brood to a minimum, I’m not suggesting to eliminate them. Large areas of drone brood in a hive can lead to a hive beetle slime-out. The reason being that recently emerged drones will hang about the comb they emerged from, thus allowing beetles to crawl among them unchallenged, which can result in the beetles damaging & laying eggs in the drone comb of existing brood.
After witnessing the damage in drone comb twice in one day, the penny dropped, resulting in my strategy over the past decade.
In one of the videos I recommend, “Nova Bee Tales from a Hive”, they say that each colony has around a hundred drones. Colonies have way more than that, and my colonies with my restrictions have way more than that as well.
Keeping bees is challenging, to say the least. We just have to figure out the best way to overcome these challenges. Learning from experience is one way.