# Lots of Drones



## Falls-Acre (May 13, 2009)

Should I be worried? When I split my hive last week, I was checking each frame that was moved very carefully. There seemed to be an unusually high number of drones being created and already hatched out. One frame had at least 5 drones walking around on one side! How many drones does a strong hive usually make?

I'm trying to encourage the newly created hive to raise their own queen (since I can't find one to purchase anywhere!). I moved 5 frames of brood/honey/bees to the new hive. I'm feeding the new hive to try and help them out. I just split them last week and haven't checked the new hive yet (I opened the top to make sure they were okay once), but will do that Saturday. Is there anything else I can do? What if they don't raise a queen? How will I know if they have (other than new young bees) and how long does it usually take for them to do that?


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## goodatit (May 1, 2013)

i wouldn't worry too much about a lot of drones. You want eggs, not larva. Eggs hatch at 3 days, and become larva.

The egg leans over and ends up laying on its side in the royal jelly. When it hatches into a larva, it will appear as a small imperfection in the pool of royal jelly. This is the stage most people graft at.

Appearance wise, if you can easily see a larva, it is too late. If you want the bees to make a queen, give them an egg to work with.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

I don't graft to make new queens I use the cell punch method. I look for that tiny little C shape laying in the pool of white in the bottom of the cell.
If you don't have queen cells in a week you probably need to change out a frame so you have a frame with eggs and those tiny c shapes in the bottom of the cell.
I always figure 30 days from the time I do the cell punch to the new queen hatching and laying.


Having lots of drones is common & you want them to mate with your new queens.


 Al


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## TxGypsy (Nov 23, 2006)

Tis the time of the year for them to be raising drones. Not that they don't do it at other times, but they do seem to do more of it during Spring....ie swarming season.


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## Falls-Acre (May 13, 2009)

I finally got around to checking on the new hive. It is doing fantastic! Nice strong hive with nearly all the frames full of bees busily working away. Plenty of new larva in the frames I checked too. I'm so relived. Now I just need to get the 2nd hive body on that one. I put on a honey super (all I've got at the moment) to give them some extra room to expand honey stores until I get the 2nd hive body finished.


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