# Weather for mating flight



## virginiawolf (Feb 18, 2011)

As long as there are some days for the bees to fly and there are drones I think it will be fine. I had some cells that I moved when it was freezing in May and the take was not that great but some still turned out just fine. I don't know the exact statistics but if the bees are flying they have seemed to get it done almost every time. When I am seeing drones being produced I figure that it is good timing for producing queens. Make sure that there are enough bees to keep the queen cells warm.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

In a few ways bees can be like people. If everyday is windy the queen is more likely to fly in the wind. If every day is rainy, she's more likely to fly even though it's cloudy. But generally she needs an optimum day. Clear skys and calm would be her preference.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

anybody have information on lower temperature thresholds? In spring we have lots of weather that is clear, but cool (15 C). Would drone flying be a better indicator when to start with queen rearing? I have some capped drones now.


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## BigBlackBirds (Aug 26, 2011)

Kenww said:


> How good does the weather have to be for a successful mating flight? How warm? Can it be a little windy or rainy? Thanks.



An afternoon that is calm, sunny and warm is ideal. But yes they fly in less than ideal conditions including wind and rain as it can be hard to have ideal conditions. If they waited until everything was perfect theres a good chance nothing would happen due to the weather in some years. I've had many experiences where the virgin never had the weather to make a flight and ended up with no viable queen. That kinda weather is rare but it happens 

When I was raising alot of queens it was inevitable that during some point in the summer there would be lousy weather when virtually no flights would take place for many days. The first day with any weather "just less than lousy" would cause a mass exit of queens and drones in the afternoon. It could be cloudy, cold, rainy but they would fly to mate after being confined by even worse weather for so long.

Now here is the touchy part. We all get excited and happy when we see them fly in that poor weather after not being able to fly previously but its a mixed bag. They often mate but that mating is often not nearly as good as if the weather was great. And this is when you have queens that fail much earlier than you would like.


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