Collection Of Drones For Insemination

In collecting drones for insemination, we make use of a screen cage 4 by 4 by 1 1/2 inches (fig. 13, A) with a 1-inch hole that can be closed with a rubber stopper. When this cage is held over the hole in the front of the drone nursery colony, a large number of drones can be collected in a few minutes as they seek exit in the afternoons. If they are not to be used immediately, worker bees are added through a funnel, the cage is laid on its side in the laboratory, and a gravity feeder containing sugar syrup is placed on the screen. These cages of drones can also be temporarily stored between brood combs in a queenless colony or above a queen excluder in a queen-right colony. Drones can be kept this way overnight or for a day or two.

For use in insemination, these cages of drones, with or without worker bees, are placed in a larger screen cage next to the insemination apparatus. The larger cage is 7 by 7 by 12 inches with a door at one end through which the drones can be taken one by one by reaching into the cage. The other end is covered with a queen excluder and opens to the outside of the building. Both drones and worker bees are attracted to the outside light, and the worker bees gradually leave through the excluder.

In bad weather or in the mornings when drones are not attempting to leave the hive, they can be taken from the combs, but young drones must be avoided. The older drones are usually found on the side combs in the lower part of the hive. When drones are confined to a nursery colony but not caged, the older drones can be easily distinguished. The drones gradually rub off the hair on the upper surface of the thorax just behind the head as they try to leave the hive through the excluder material. The older the drones are, the larger this polished area will be.

Control Of Parentage

When rearing daughter queens or drones from a selected breeder colony, one must take all possible precautions to assure that the queens and drones are reared from the breeder's eggs, not from any other source.

In rearing queens, the young worker larvae grafted into the cell cups must be those originating from the breeder queen. Adequate assurance of this is that the breeder queen can be positively identified, that she is present at the time, and that no other laying queen is present. Alternate breeders should be available in case the first choice is lost or superseded.

In rearing drones, care must be taken to avoid the use of drones reared from eggs laid by laying workers of a foreign source which may have drifted in from other colonies or which may have been added to maintain the breeder colony or drone nursery.

The use of drones from laying workers can largely be prevented by the following management practices applied to breeder queen colonies and drone nursery colonies:

1. Whenever possible use bees that are daughters of the breeder queen.

2. If unrelated bees are used, avoid taking bees from colonies that have been queenless recently because such bees are more likely to become laying workers.

3. When utilizing drones and queens in insemination, discard any that are not typical of the stock.

4. Use drones from a drone nursery colony within 23 days of the time it was made up, or destroy any drone brood that could be developing from laying workers' eggs. A drone nursery colony may develop some laying workers easily if it should accidentally become queenless.

5. Whenever practical, use bees of a distinguishable color when stocking breeding colonies or drone nursery colonies, so that queen and drone progeny of the worker bees are easily recognizable.