Honey Bee Drones

Georgia Master Beekeeper Julia Mahood gives us an in-depth and fun look at honey bee drones including "who, what, why, when, where, how, how much and how far".
Recorded at a monthly meeting of "The Northeast Georgia Mountain Beekeepers" in Clarkesville Georgia.

[@NATURALBEEKEEPERSCOLLECTIVE]

Kudos to you for uploading this good video.. Will just mention one correction. The Queen goes on mating flight much more then a couple of days. I was the first one ever to upload a video of a queen coming back after a mating flight. That was day 67 after she had already been laying through the roof. As we say the proof is in the pudding. Drones pass on the temprement. So when people take out the drones and destroy them from good hives. I wonder why they end up with hot hives in their apiary . Go figure. Drones do visit flowers to feed. I have videos of big drones on a few different species of flowers. When I showed a fellow bee keepr his respnse was oh they are just lazing about. So I told him to llook more carefully and watch the Drones probe, Yep they feeding buddy. Workers also feed drones out side the colony aswell on some special feed. My last point Drones absolutely do comunicate with each other, The fine lady needs to do some more research. Drones are also better heaters in the hive. I might share how to create a drone congregation area at some point.

[@thehiveandthehoneybee9547]

i think shes smarter then you by far!!!!!!! tellin her to do some more research gave ma a belly laugh!!!!!! LOL she is right drones dont forage at all they just cant!!!!!!!

[@NATURALBEEKEEPERSCOLLECTIVE]

@@thehiveandthehoneybee9547 What a pointless comment. You get pillock of the year award. Gonna frame this one for FB lol Laughing and mocking is all you have. WOW Your IQ must be at least 9 almost into double figures. Certainly where bees are concerned for sure. Where did I say drones forage? I said Drones do visit flowers to feed. Which they do. Certain flowers where they can reach the nectar to feed. I have many videos of drones feeding on certain flowers. I also have videos on worker bees feeding drones. I could not give a flying fairy what you think lol It does not change the facts no matter how you dress them up. HAVE A GREAT DAY ADIOS.

[@fordman38]

What a wonderful presentation. This put my mind at ease. I am new to bee keeping and 1 of my colonies started making lots of drones. Turns out that's normal and a sign of a healthy hive. Fantastic, Thank you Julia.

[@topnotch4595]

Love it, the drones timing to leave the hive depths on the book they read.

[@HalfQuickFarmer]

This was a really good presentation. Thanks

[@geckoproductions4128]

Julia Mahood is an amazing and knowledgable presenter. Thank you so much for sharing this.

[@altaylor293]

Excellent presentation of an often over-looked subject and Julia does a great job. Thanks for sharing.

[@goeddia223]

Excellent presenter and interesting topic! Thank you. Never knew I needed to know so much about drones. Super informative.

[@jhulin9018]

Very interesting. Thank you for making this available and for all you do!

[@gregcundiff]

That was a lot of great information!

[@philjanikjr9805]

Totally Totally awesome presentation!! Will be watching this for a second time. Bee Happy HBM

[@Pautraini]

Great information! Thanks

[@mrwonk]

8 bit coax network cable on those RFID readers. That's way too expensive. Tell your IT department to stop wasting money. They could have done all the communications using a $5 used Linksys router and a couple $3 8266 based microcontrollers.

[@aidanquick3151]

Can a lay person, not techy, do something like you're describing?

[@mrwonk]

@@aidanquick3151It does take some tinkering, but totally doable for someone with even a beginning course in computer programming under their belts. Let's of beginner "Arduino" tutorials on the internet. The Wemos D1 Pro Mini is my goto board, as it is only a couple bucks and gives me the ability to communicate with the web (or even your own web server if you have one). There are free libraries and tools to make it all very easy. Wherever that data is going on the 8 bit coax; could be done much easier and less expensive using wifi on these Wemos D1 boards.

[@bomchickawahwaaaaah]

Many thanks for sharing this info Bob. Great presentation by Julia!

[@user-oo4lx8fo4j]

Really good presentation I have seen in the past. I used references of this video in my studies and also for setting up drone yards for my queen bee rearing operation.

[@chuckgross6024]

Thanks for sharing this, Bob! I have heard Julia on bee keeping today podcast, and maybe a couple others. It was nice to see her presentation!

[@gloriayoder5173]

Holy smokes! Didn’t know there is that much to know about drones. Great speaker and presentation.

[@tjjastrem127]

Fascinating bob now I wanna go find a dca

[@tmd0402]

What a great presentation! I could listen to her talk bees for hours!

[@hillkid4mountains]

Just starting to watch. The title, great play on words. Looking forward to commenting on it after seeing. You don't hear many beekeepers talking about these guys. Excited! 🐝

[@EganHomesteadApiary]

Thanks for sharing!! This was great information, well presented!

[@ellenl.5581]

I'm not a bee keeper but I enjoyed this very much.

[@sonofthunder.]

Fantastic...i often wondered about dca over tree canopies ,learned alot here heading into yr 5 keeping

[@kbpreacherman]

Fantastic presentation! Thanks Bob! Was good to see you at the Alabama Beekeepers Convention a few months ago.

[@fiveapple]

This is an INCREDIBLE presentation!!! And now I want a UAV. 😂 Also hoping to get her on the podcast! 😃 Thanks so much Julia and Bob!! Leigh /Beekeeping at Five Apple Podcast

[@MagnoliaSpringsFarm19]

Lots of information. I learned something new today. Thank you!

[@doctortcbkk2027]

Julia is a friend and mentor of mine here in atlanta. Great presentation and work she did!

[@user-ts9cy7nk3v]

Kool 👌 OK thanks for the info

[@framcesmoore]

Ha Bob this was very interesting, thanks so much for sharing it. I have not heard any talks on the drone. Hope you and your family and all your crew had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Have a Blessed week.

[@BeardedBman]

always needing information about all bee related thanks for the presentation look forwarded to seeing more.

[@lenturtle7954]

I appolgize for being off topic But a possible idea for a video would be treating hives with CO2

[@brianbennett4374]

Great information 👍 thanks for posting it 😊

[@paulchase8585]

Very interesting talk. I learnt a lot. Cheers.

[@davidhunter1380]

Good morning Bob! Great video. We don't normally hear anyone go into that much detail about drones. This is packed with great information. Thanks for posting it.

[@lenturtle7954]

Very interesting video Bob Thanks for your willingness to educate us .

[@scrotiemcboogerballs1981]

Thanks for sharing hope everyone had a great thanksgiving

[@zalmaflash]

Really good presentation. Thank you very much.

[@mariancreata4103]

Very nice explain

[@Chard-Bees]

Thank you so much for sharing this great talk on Drones

[@joinHR]

Interesting ❤thank you so much.

[@stevealguire8224]

Excellent! Thank you!

[@BigBllc]

Excellent!!

[@hockinghillshoneyfarm9273]

Great info Bob thanks

[@toprakanaciftligi8037]

👏👏👏

[@gene-sloca]

Great video.

[@TrickyTrev01]

Very interesting and informative. Thanks for sharing 🇦🇺👍🐝🍯

[@drliptak1]

Awesome! Class act. I wish Drone culling was not a part of the majority of beginner beekeeping curriculum. There is so much we dont know about them and their vital role in colony health.

[@kennith.]

Thank you for sharing Bob, she is a great presenter. I learnt so much on what I thought would be a very dry and boring video. Needless to say I watched till the end.

[@bobbinnie9872]

It's a long video. I've been wondering how many people will stay until the end.👍 (I would)

[@kennith.]

@@bobbinnie9872 in the end didn't seem that long since it was packed full of information and a great sense of humor. Thanks again.

[@oscarvilla6841]

Thank you, great , fun presentation good job, inspiring me to do better.

[@bobbinnie9872]

Hi Oscar. Ready for a cold winter?

[@randhawabeefarm4873]

Thanks bob I am form India

[@nancynolton6079]

Picked up lots of new info on Drones in this video and have thought drones got the short end of the stick with respect to their importance to the hive. May have to try finding a DCA near my apiary next!

[@johnboec3]

Hands down the best drone presentation ever given. Please keep them coming.

[@robertdemers5125]

Good Morning Bob !

[@bobbinnie9872]

Good morning sir.

[@BrianJMader54476]

Interesting

[@brucesouthernsassapiaries8316]

Bob, hope you and the crew had a great Thanksgiving!

[@bobbinnie9872]

We did, thanks.

[@fux6163]

I would like to ask for links to the studies she mentioned, especially that one with the white-eyed drones flying when th light switched on. Thank you.

[@juliamahood3344]

The white eyed drone work was done by Brock Harpur at Purdue this past summer and it is in the process of being published. He has a great talk on it, I'm not sure it's online anywhere but if you get the chance to hear him speak, it's a great talk.

[@hillkid4mountains]

One of the most interesting and informative videos I have been lucky to watch about drones, their biology, mating habits and routines, and overall shared knowledge on the subject of drones. What an amazing speaker and researcher that I never knew about. Thanks Bob! 🐝

[@hillkid4mountains]

I forwarded this to RO. And I wanted to share a subject on making 5 frame nucs with him and his two sons after Almond pollination and in his out yards back in the foothills of his home several years ago. They had their flatbed truck with 80 or so, vacant honeybees, but full of open brood foundation. One son would be opening up 2 story 10 frame double deep hives getting ready to remove 75% of the frames with bees, capped brood, and honey with pollen in one of them also. He, RO, would be at a long rectangular table on saw horses with his other son making up 5 frame nucs with two frames of honeybees and brood, a frame of honey, a frame of pollen hopefully and an empty drawn out frame of foundation. I've seen you Bob in your KZbin videos do this along with my mentor and I doing the same thing in prune pollination after taking them out of Almonds. They, RO and sons, were quite efficient, fast, and done in record time and onto a yard to deposit them and put in queen cells in the next couple of days. One thing I remember and noticed now was the putting of different frames of brood and bees from various other hives and not all from the same colony into the nucs they were making up. I think it represented as I look back that having different workers from other boxes helped hatch out, tend to and feed royal jelly from the start, and also cared and groomed her along with polishing up the emptying cells with newly hatched out young downy nurse bees wanting to help her on the virgin queen's journey to get mated, begin laying, and further the ability to begin a new nucleus colony of honeybees. I believe having different workers from different hives made for better attendants, nurse bees, and drones for the overall presence and survival of the hive. The varying otherwise unrelated girls took an unexpected approach to caring for that new hatched out virgin queen rather than sister siblings thinking that oh she is just a younger sister. She can take care of herself with little to no help from us. An interesting point of view from my perspective. What do you think of this Bob Binnie? Take care and again thanks for the video a different way to see and enjoy our drones. So important to the welfare of a hive. 🐝👍❄️ It's coming Artic air and El Nino' here on the west coast!

[@Robman007]

I have seen her drone presentation a couple times now but she knocked it out of the park on this one! Great job Julia! 👏🏻

[@BucketListBees]

Well, now that was interesting. Coffee and Drones. Guess I’ll buy a UAV.

[@rtxhoneybees]

Thanks Bob for bringing this to us. It made my fence clearing and limb dragging much more tolerable. Now I have to go back and watch those images she showed!

[@blakesbees437]

This has to be one of the best bee videos I have watched in a while. Thanks for sharing!

[@fshrgy99]

Thanks once again Bob. I have toyed with qmp hanging from a balloon to try and find dca,s around my yards. Not having funds I thought I could do with three ballons inflated with helium from the dollar store. I'll caution those who are thinking the same that three party ballons on the end of your fishing pole will blow mostly sideways along the ground in even the lightest of breezes. One of these days I might get a uav and try again. I'd love to hear Julia talk more about the genetic side of drone influence. Because my climate is cold and our season is short we import tens of thousands of queens every spring. With every queen laying 3000 drones (winston) imagine how little success we have maintaining cold weather genetics in our local population!

[@bobbinnie9872]

I understand. If you haven't watched it yet our video with Keith Deleplane on Polyandry In Honey Bees is very interesting. kzbin.info/www/bejne/fXykZ35ra5mDbsU

[@dennislintz1]

Great presentation. Would love to know what RFID Chip and equipment was used.

[@bobbinnie9872]

I'll ask.

[@juliamahood3344]

I used Mycrosensys equipment but was not happy with it. It’s supposed to be easy to use but there were numerous problems.

[@fshrgy99]

Clarification .....we (beekeepers in my province) import 10's of thousands of queens ...

[@kampos7112]

الجزاءرية لانتاج الملكات

[@zarkobojanic2141]

Few years ago i have drones with red ayes,is that because of inbreeding?

[@bobbinnie9872]

No, not necessarily.

[@chunky6253]

Absolutely fascinating, is there other videos for workers and queens please?

[@bobbinnie9872]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/pXmXl4yLp76eZ9k, kzbin.info/www/bejne/fXykZ35ra5mDbsU, kzbin.info/www/bejne/mWObgGxna9isapo

[@chunky6253]

Thank you for the response Bob, I've just checked out the Polyandry video also very fascinating. Keep up the awesome work and greetings from the UK.

[@carolthomas473]

I read that yes, drones supply 16 chromosomes and the queens egg provides 16. I understood all honey bees have 32 chromosomes? The book explained that a haploid drone was determined to be defective and was removed or eaten.. but the book said the drone cells divided at emerging or very shortly thereafter. Giving a drone 32 chromosomes. Was this wrong info ? Yes an unfertilized eggs becomes a drone, but to be a honeybee doesn't all honeybees have to have 32 chromosomes?

[@bobbinnie9872]

Sorry, your question just went over my pay grade.

[@illumi-Nate]

That lady has done amazing awesome research!! Good job

[@bradgoliphant]

Wow Bob. Thanks so much for great info