THE PRODUCTION OF DRONE COMB AND DRONE BROOD IN HONEY-BEE COLONIES

From May 2 to September 13, 1994 in six overwintered honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies, the third comb was replaced with an empty frame in each of the second brood chambers and then one week later the eighth comb was also replaced. This procedure was repeated six times per colony, at 21-day intervals throughout the span of the experiment. On the empty frames the colonies rapidly built out mainly drone combs and reared mainly drone brood, The average number of drone pupae produced per colony was 17,137 and the mean weight of wax was 1,108.7g. These findings indicate that with selected colonies, it is possible to produce large numbers of drones.