I tried to do a search but couldn't find what I wanted.
My question is Are lots of drones an indication of pre-swarming? Or how is drone population related to swarming?
The reason I ask is i'm seeing lots of advice here on the forums to wait to split until drones are flying. I was considering doing a split this last weekend, but our Atlanta temps are (as usual) all over the place and we had several freezing nights this week, so I decided to wait. (I'm also vacilating between splitting and trying to get more honey production this year. : / ) In any case, when I got into them this weekend I saw lots of bees, a considerable amount of drone brood, LOTS of drones, but no queen cells. Granted, I didn't dig all the way through them but did look at most of the upper frames and peered down to the next box. I added a super on top of each of my hives and decided to check them again this weekend and see what they are doing.
So I guess I'm trying to decide if the drones are telling me to go ahead and do the split now because they are going to swarm, or if the drones are just normal spring activity and I can wait/watch and give more space to build stronger hives and get more honey.
Thanks for any insight.
love,
ziffa