Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => REQUEENING & RAISING NEW QUEENS => Topic started by: Intheswamp on December 31, 2011, 12:33:18 pm

Title: How long do drones live?
Post by: Intheswamp on December 31, 2011, 12:33:18 pm
I've seen life expectancy quoted for queens and workers, but I can't say I've seen one for drones.  How long do drones live?

If you have an undesirable queen, pinch her, and immediately requeen with a cell or virgin from your own yard there will be drones with the original queen's genes flying that could possibly mate with the virgin.  Any queens banked or in a nuc would be suspect to be carrying the old queen's genes and it seems problematical, to me, to keep a colony queenless for a long enough period of time for those drones to die off. 

Is there a way to prevent the old queen's genes from being passed to the new queen other than artificial insemination?

Did any of that make sense? (http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-confused005.gif)

Ed
Title: Re: How long do drones live?
Post by: SEEYA on December 31, 2011, 07:02:00 pm
>> to keep a colony queenless for a long enough period of time for those drones to die off.

From what I've read: The hive winds up with 'laying workers', who produce only drones. These drones are still related to the 'old queen'.
Title: Re: How long do drones live?
Post by: Michael Bush on December 31, 2011, 10:08:25 pm
It is unlikely, but not impossible, that the new queen will breed with her drones.  The queen usually flies further than the drones and there is recent evidence that she prefers other drones and may actually tend to reject related drones.
Title: Re: How long do drones live?
Post by: Jim134 on December 31, 2011, 10:38:09 pm
This  book will help you out a lot
http://www.wicwas.com/index.html (http://www.wicwas.com/index.html)
Connor: Bee Sex Essentials


 By Dr. Larry Connors Just my $0.02


   BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)
Title: Re: How long do drones live?
Post by: BjornBee on January 01, 2012, 08:11:25 am
How long do drones live?

About three seconds after having it chopped off!  :-D


I think the evidence is that queens fly about as far as they need to mate. In feral colonies, that might be a good distance to a DCA with drones not her own.

But in bee yards with multiple hives, The best solution to take away any chances problems with drones, is to have two yards with different genetics. then you take a graft or cells from one yard and have them breed in the other.

Most of the problems if you were to even experience them to begin with, are when a beekeeper just sits with a few hives, and has no resources to really breed queens. So you either raise them at a buddies place, move in eggs or grafts from another location, etc.

I really think the backyard beekeeper raising one or two queens will not have much problems. You are not flooding the area with your genetics, the feral population and genetics pool is probably vast enough to support healthy queens, and much is to do about nothing.

Most of these problems are created by the so-called "queen producer" who has the same genetics in every hive (Like after dumping in 20 packages in 20 hives all at the same location), then raising queens while grafting from one of the queens. He is not doing anyone service by this model and will produce the weakest queens.

Raising one or two queens...I would not sweat it. Raising 20 queens with two or three cycles per year and selling these off as "quality" queens....then do the right thing and do what is needed for success. Use different yards with selected genetics, use drone saturation colonies, etc.
Title: Re: How long do drones live?
Post by: tedlemay on January 13, 2012, 10:47:54 pm
So, how long do drones live?
Title: Re: How long do drones live?
Post by: Tommyt on January 14, 2012, 06:29:45 pm
So, how long do drones live?
Title: Re: How long do drones live?
Post by: Intheswamp on January 14, 2012, 07:00:14 pm
So, how long do drones live?





Thanks, Tommy.  I had been wondering about that.

Ed
Title: Re: How long do drones live?
Post by: Michael Bush on January 14, 2012, 08:49:57 pm
Drones live about as long as field bees and they work about as hard at their job.  If they are successful, as Bjorn points out, they live much less.
Title: Re: How long do drones live?
Post by: tedlemay on January 14, 2012, 09:26:55 pm
Thanks for that info Michael. Without doing a lot of reading i just figured they had a longer lifespan.
Title: Re: How long do drones live?
Post by: Michael Bush on January 14, 2012, 11:33:30 pm
I have seen estimates of four to five weeks for drones and I've seen estimates of seven to eight weeks for drones.  I'm sure it's somewhere between those and that would be about the same as workers.  I've seen them winter and they last as long as the workers then too...
Title: Re: How long do drones live?
Post by: Jim134 on January 14, 2012, 11:57:32 pm
Connor: Bee Sex Essentials


 By Dr. Larry Connors Just my $0.02


   BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)


In the book Dr. Connors say about 1 week in the hive and about 4 weeks in the field


   BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)