Drones know

[drone1952]

A question bother me and  I want to know your opinion: does the drones know that there is a virgin queen in their hive? :?

[BjornBee]

Yes and no..... ;)

Drones can sense a lack of a queen pheromone, and therefore hand out, congregate, and seek hives that are about to swarm, supercede, or are queenless. 

So it may not be that drones can actually sense a virgin queen, since she is not producing the same pheromones as a laying queen. They may more in fact sense a "lack" of pheromones. They will seek out hives with queen cells, and virgins alike. So maybe it is a combination of pheromones, lack of pheromones, and other "senses" like a humming queenless hive.

Which really always makes you wonder.....If queens always fly further than drones fly to mate, why would drones seek out, and congregate in queenless hives. Or is it that like most males of any species, they do stupid things under such wishful thinking.  :-D

[fish_stix]

Whut?  :shock:

[rdy-b]

after 3 days she will make queen sent whether she mates or not-they dont know if she is virgin or not-the drones in the hive do however notice with great anticipation how the house bees in the hive are acting and responding to the queen-they are the ones that encourage the queen to take her flight -they can be very perswaysive to the point of dragging her outside-they know there survival depends on a successful return-once the drones receive the information from the house bees they are aware a mating flight is in the plan but they know not from virgin or one of many mating flights she will take-the drones in the hive are not necessarily the drones she will mate with more than likely her flight will take her to a destination of new genetics -natures way of not letting the gene pool get stagnate and helps propitiate the species  RDY-B