{"id":7405,"date":"2022-03-15T09:48:19","date_gmt":"2022-03-15T13:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beekeepingfornewbies.com\/?p=7405"},"modified":"2022-09-11T17:21:13","modified_gmt":"2022-09-11T21:21:13","slug":"what-is-a-drone-bee-about-male-honey-bees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beekeepingfornewbies.com\/what-is-a-drone-bee-about-male-honey-bees\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is A Drone Bee? | About Male Honey Bees"},"content":{"rendered":"
Updated on September 11th, 2022<\/p>\n
Honey bee colonies consist of three types of adult bees: a female queen bee, female workers bees, and male drone bees. Drones comprise about 10 – 15% of a colony\u2019s population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A drone bee is a male developed from a queen’s unfertilized egg. Larger than workers, a drone’s sole purpose is to mate with a virgin queen. Drones perform no other hive tasks and cannot sting. Since they have a limited function, the colony controls the drone population, so they do not burden resources.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Queens mate once in their lifetime with as many as 20 drones. However, few drones successfully mate during their lifetime. Drones that mate die afterward from a ruptured abdomen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This article discusses how drones develop, their role in the hive, and other facts to assist beginning beekeepers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The main difference between drones and other bees is their sex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Drones are male honey bees<\/strong>. The other two adult honey bees, queens and workers, are female.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Workers build the wax comb with hexagonal cells for raising brood and storing food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wax cells can serve different purposes depending on their size and location in the hive. Guided by queen pheromones, workers monitor the colony’s needs and determine what size cells to build.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat Gender Are Drone Bees?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
How Drones Are Made<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n