# Banking drone layers for the winter!



## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

I want to attempt to bank a couple of drone layers for the winter so I can start queen rearing earlier. I am looking for input on what I should do to accomplish this. I can keep nucs in the shed and place worker brood in them to keep the worker populations up. 
Maybe this is not possible, but I think its worth a shot seing as I have the drone layers already.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Banking queens in a cold climate is iffy at best. But here's what has worked for me sometimes. First, buy a terrarium heater. This will keep them warm enough they won't cluster so much. If they cluster all the queens except those in the center will die. Second, accept that you will have to sacrifice some bees to make this happen, maybe even one whole hive. You'll have to add some bees at least twice, probably, to get through the winter and they will have to come from somewhere. It might be a good plan to keep them in a cellar or the living room with a tube to the outdoors.


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## sukeljuma (May 15, 2008)

*banking queens*

set hive over a dbl screen board to share the warmth it works in southern illinois near st louis i used the same idea 2 seasons ago to make some rusian and itl qns make sure of the gentlness of the workers when making queens like this tho


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

bluegrass said:


> I want to attempt to bank a couple of drone layers for the winter....


Why would anyone want to bank "drone layers?"


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Apparently so he can get early drones.


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## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

I think sufficient early protein stimulation will result in ample drone supply. Drone production is closely linked to pollen flow.


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

Michael Bush said:


> Apparently so he can get early drones.


 That would be the idea.... So do you think it is do able?

I heated a hive last winter with a 60 watt light bulb under the bottom board. I have a shed I can put the hives into. I already have the drone layers so I was just hoping to get them through the winter and start queen rearing in early March. We have enough warm days for mating flights, just not the drones.

I wonder if the workers will end up spending all winter kicking drones out of the hive?


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## Troy (Feb 9, 2006)

Here in Florida the number of cold nights that the bees actually cluster is very small.

I wonder if, with some kind of small heater one could do this pretty easily here.

I am not set up for queen rearing, I am just a sideline beek, but I am just wondering aloud.


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## peggjam (Mar 4, 2005)

Seems to me if one wanted drone layers, he could graft some early queens and then cage them so they can't mate. Might be easier than trying to bank them.....


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Seems to me if one wanted drone layers, he could graft some early queens and then cage them so they can't mate.

In my experience if they don't mate they never lay. If they mate late they lay drones. But it might work if you postpone their mating flight long enough and they find at least one drone to mate with.


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## cdowdy (Mar 12, 2008)

Michael Bush said:


> >Seems to me if one wanted drone layers, he could graft some early queens and then cage them so they can't mate.
> 
> In my experience if they don't mate they never lay. If they mate late they lay drones. But it might work if you postpone their mating flight long enough and they find at least one drone to mate with.


I have a 5 frame nuc that I would like to raise drones for mating with some new queens for requeening this fall. My problem is getting the queen to lay in the drone comb that is drawn out They have one full frame of honey two frames of brood (full of capped brood and one frame of drone (Drawn) comb and one frame ½ full of pollen. After two weeks the queen seems to ignore the drone comb. What can I do to get her to lay in it. CDowdy


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## Eaglerock (Jul 8, 2008)

A local beekeeper who has over 50 hives going, told me he lost bees due to the last cold winter snap we had late in March and April.... so he and his wife are taking in inside. Now, I asked if he was talking them inside a barn or what but we got interrupted. I had never heard of anyone taking their bees inside. I would think they would eat more and run out of food earlier, but what do I know.

So if he is taking them inside I guess you could... but I am not sure you would have food to keep them going, although you might feed them.... is that your plan?


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## Eaglerock (Jul 8, 2008)

cdowdy said:


> After two weeks the queen seems to ignore the drone comb. What can I do to get her to lay in it. CDowdy


They tend to lay Drones when they have never mated, might you just get a new queen to make sure she wants to mate?


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

is someone equating drone layers with drone mothers???

so why would anyone really wish to maintain a drone layer?

eaglerock writes:
So if he is taking them inside I guess you could... but I am not sure you would have food to keep them going, although you might feed them.... is that your plan?

tecumseh replies: at one time northern bee keepers overwintered their stock in cellers... later these cellers became enclosed shed. based upon some things I have read (quite obviously one need not do either in central texas) controlling the temperature and most especially the temperature rise in unseasonable warm periods in the midst of winter (temperature increases from the hives bioliogy when they consume more feed stuffs associated with warmer air temperature) is the most important variable to consider.


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## BjornBee (Feb 7, 2003)

Eaglerock said:


> They tend to lay Drones when they have never mated, might you just get a new queen to make sure she wants to mate?


I'm doing my best to understand some of your posts, but I'm confused on more than one.

Are you talking about getting a virgin queen and keeping her from mating?

I find virgin queens are usually disposed of by the bees. although some hives remain loyal to the very end. But usually the virgin disappears, and the colony turns into a laying worker colony.

Most of the queen drone laying colonies I have seen are situations where the queen went bad after a period of laying good eggs, and just sputtered out.

If you follow even the simplest methods and recommendations for queen rearing, there are suggestions made for numbers of drone colonies, etc. It sounds as if some are trying to raise a few drones from a single colony in hopes that they mate with queens raised at the same place. I think the control, quality, and chances of making a difference with such minimal approaches could be seen as futile. It also seems some are banging their heads against the wall with mother nature, trying to raise queens at time when nature dictates otherwise. maybe more attention should be given to when its more conducive to rear queens with optimal conditions and better results can be achieved. I think if the condition dictate good queen rearing, then go for it. But if at times its not supposed to be, then why fight it, especially at a time (fall), when having lousy queens, poor quality, and other factors not worth the risk. To me, to have hives miss the fall brood cycle or go into fall or winter with questionable results, could be devastating.

I think summer splits and fall requeening with reliable queen sources (queens raised in nucs earlier or purchased queens) is one thing, but to mess around requeening and trying to force queens to mate at time when nature dictates otherwise is risking too much. Especially when you may have little time to correct the situation or miss part of the fall brood cycle.


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## danwyns (Nov 11, 2007)

By drone layer, you mean (short)mated queen that has run out of semen and can no longer lay fertilized eggs? Presumably she had the same opportunity to mate as the other virgins emerging at the same time, yet she has failed. This doesn't strike me as a queen I want to encourage to contribute to future generations.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Might as well save your time and buy your early queens in. Early mating doesnt work. If the bees arent making the drones, it usually means the bees feel its too early to mate queens. Weather is chancy, and stock is pricy. 
Why take the risks?


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

It is about climatized stock so buying in queens is not an option. I guess I will just have to sell later.


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## Eaglerock (Jul 8, 2008)

bluegrass said:


> I have a shed I can put the hives into. I already have the drone layers so I was just hoping to get them through the winter and start queen rearing in early March. We have enough warm days for mating flights, just not the drones.
> 
> I wonder if the workers will end up spending all winter kicking drones out of the hive?


When putting them in a shed, are they not able to get outside at all. Warm winter days they like to come out. 

Kicking drones out... excluders? Maybe take the frame off the excluder and tack the thing right to the hive... they won't be able to even take them out at all...


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## Eaglerock (Jul 8, 2008)

BjornBee said:


> Are you talking about getting a virgin queen and keeping her from mating?
> 
> .


I think I was saying that if you put in a queen that has not mated she will lay drones to mate. Or so I was taught back in the 60's. Is that Inbreeding


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

Eaglerock said:


> I think I was saying that if you put in a queen that has not mated she will lay drones to mate. Or so I was taught back in the 60's. Is that Inbreeding


Not exactly.... If she does not mate within the time frame she has she will not mate.....she will only lay drones because she is not firtle. She will not mate with those drones.....


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Not exactly.... If she does not mate within the time frame she has she will not mate.....she will only lay drones because she is not firtle. She will not mate with those drones.....

I've had queens with crumpled wings. In my observation, they never mate. They never lay at all. I've had queens that mated late. They lay nothing but drones. 

Huber's observations on the matter:

http://www.bushfarms.com/huber.htm#impregnationaffectstheovaries

"Every morning about eleven o'clock, when the weather was fine and the sunshine invited the males to leave their hives, I saw her impetuously traverse every corner of her habitation, seeking to escape. Her fruitless efforts threw her into an uncommon agitation, the symptoms of which I shall elsewhere describe, and all the common bees were affected by it. As she never was out all this time, she could not be impregnated. At length, on the thirty-sixth day, I set her at liberty. She soon took advantage of it; and was not long of returning with the most evident marks of fecundation.

"Satisfied with the particular object of this experiment, I was far from any hopes that it would lead to the knowledge of another very remarkable fact; how great was my astonishment, therefore, on finding that this female, which, as usual, began to lay forty-six hours after copulation, laid the eggs of drones, but none of workers, and that she continued ever afterwards to lay those of drones only."--François Huber, New Observations on the Natural History Of Bees

In my observation drone layers are mated. Just mated late. Huber's observation seems to concur with mine.


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## dcross (Jan 20, 2003)

So you're trying to get drones earlier? Why would the workers raise those eggs? When the time is right, a mated queen lays plenty of drone eggs...

And even if all that worked out, how are they going to mate if it's too early/cold for mating flights?


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