# Drone Bee



## gljohnson (Jul 22, 2004)

I am a fairly newbee and need to clear up something confusing for me. How is it a drone has a grandfather, but no father? Is it simple he comes from a non-fertile egg?


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## oldgreyone (Apr 30, 2005)

The answer to your last question is yes.
Depending how deep you want to go as to the diploid females and haploid male, I'll leave that up to you.


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## JDI (May 11, 2005)

The drone has a mother (the queen) who developed from a fertilized egg. So the the drone's grandfather is the male that fertilized the egg that resulted in the drone's mother. 
Welcome to the best hobby on the planet.
James


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## teen-bee (Jan 15, 2005)

mmm interesting...now i wonder on drone rearing. how do we get the girls to build drone cell during non-swarmings season... i tried a starter strip of 1" but they build the combs in worker cell instead of drone cell.... comments pls?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>how do we get the girls to build drone cell during non-swarmings season...

I do not believe anything you do will make any difference. They raise drones when they feel the need and cut back on drones when they feel the need. The research I've seen shows the proportion of drones is constant for a given time of year regardless of the occurance of drone comb. The bees will simply store honey in the drone comb when they don't need to raise drones and will build more or clear some out when they want to rear drones.

On the plus side there are almost always some drones around from early spring until winter. Just more in the middle of swarming season.

>i tried a starter strip of 1" but they build the combs in worker cell instead of drone cell.... 

Because thats what they needed at the time. Even if you get them to build drone comb, they may just fill it with honey, if they are not needing drones.


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