By: Ernie Schmidt
This article originally appeared in the Summer 2019 issue of BEEKeeping Your First Three Years
Langstroth, (the father of the modern beehive) in 1878 wrote, None of the reasons previously assigned seem fully to account for the necessity of so many drones. For a long time I could not perceive the wisdom of the existing arrangement; although never doubted that there was a satisfactory reason for this seeming imperfection. To have supposed otherwise, would have been highly unphilosophical, when we know with the increase of knowledge many mysteries in nature, once inexplicable, have been fully cleared up.1
Dr. Currie wrote in his 1987 drone research paper, A published research about drones is far less extensive than about either worker or queen bees because drones do not contribute to brood production, pollination or honey production.2
Dr. Thomas D. Seeley – Drones are definitely the understudied members of a honey bee colony. It is interesting that the Harrison paper3 reports that drones do contribute to the heat production in a colony. So yes, they may do more than provide sperm.4
Why?
The drone has little or no value other than to breed with a queen and is – in fact – a liability, consuming valuable colony resources. Why is that description readily and willingly accepted as a scientific fact?
The drone indeed has a single purpose and primary focus in his life – to breed with a queen. The vast majority of Drone scientific study is related to that specific behavior of mature drones. However, he does have other behaviors that are beneficial to the colony. Through no fault of the drone or mankind, the drone has received a bum rap in history’s court of public opinion. Upon closer inspection (and research), the drone has been found to be a valuable member of the colony. The drone not only earns his keep he makes significant contributions to the colony. The drone is a victim of that old saying, repeat something long enough and it becomes a fact. Much of what we know about drones has been repeated over and over for hundreds of years with little reason or motivation to discover if it is indeed true or not. There has been an astute, curious few over the years that have pondered and believed there was a part of the life story of the drone bee that was missing. What we knew, or what we thought we knew about the drone, just didn’t seem right or complete. Given the choice of building their own comb, colonies will build considerable drone cell. So great is that instinct that even in hives with foundation comb they will find places to produce drone cells. The drones help themselves to honey, nectar, and pollen directly from workers or from stores. The colony freely allows the drones to help themselves to the valuable, hard earned food. So great is the colony’s generosity of drones that a colony will accept and feed drones that drift in from other colonies. The very sustenance that the colony needs to feed the brood and put into stores to survive the Winter they will give freely to the drones. It has been accepted for years that the drones appear to contribute nothing more than sperm in return for the valuable food.
There is little doubt of the extensive study and research into the drone’s perceived single purpose in apiculture, breeding with queens. Even after centuries of keeping the bee, because of the lack of a monetary value purpose, mankind has been unable to find any other reason for them in apiculture. On the other hand, I had a different motivation to look that can be summed up in one word. Why? Why do healthy colonies want a large population of drones and will exert considerable energy, effort and determination into that endeavor? Why produce hundreds or thousands of drones when only fraction of them may have a remote chance of breeding with a queen from a competing colony in the area? And after all this, why are they evicted to die when this single human perceived purpose is no longer needed?
Is It More Likely Than Not
Allow me to first discuss the preponderance of evidence that the drone is not the useless lazy loafer that common knowledge would lead us to believe.
The colony as a whole will control all individuals within the hive that are perceived to be a liability to the success of the colony. The queen, arguably the most important individual in the colony, will be superseded by the colony if they feel she has become unproductive. lnjured, old, worn workers will be prevented from remaining in the hive. In fact, many workers in such conditions will leave on their own rather then become a liability to the colony. The drones are ejected in the Fall. The drones are ejected in the Fall. Clearly something has happened at that point in time that they are now a liability and no longer of any benefit to the survival of the colony. The colony exhibits that it knows how it can clear the hive of drones when they chose to.
Showing clear indication that the drone had some form of value to that particular colony up to that point in time. If they were of the same of no use or benefit to the colony during the year they would have been ejected all year long. Only a tiny fraction of all drones a colony produces in a year ever get a remote chance to breed. If the drone had no other purpose then to breed, a colony would only need to produce enough of them to satisfy that purpose. A colony produces a population of drones far exceeding the numbers needed for that to be their only purpose.
There is fossil evidence that early ancestors of the honey bee date back 100 million years and evidence of direct ancestry dating back 35 million years. The honey bee has remained virtually unchanged for millions of years. They honed their existence to such a fine point that they did not need to change or evolve to adapt to their environment. In fact during those millions of years, 100s of plant species changed and evolved to adapt to the honey bee. The importance of attaching the honey bee for pollination was so great that flowering plants changed and evolved methods of attracting them. So fine tuned as an organism for survival is the honey bee that they did not need to change or adapt to their environment for millions of years. Their environment literally adapted to them. An organism that has perfected its ecological niche and survived that well for that long would have fine tuned the value of the number of Drones it produces. The modern honey bee now produces the number of Drones they do because it has a direct survival value to the colony.
The Happy Bees Theory
Studies indicate that colonies with healthy drone populations appear to produce more honey.5 There are a couple of possible explanations offered for this behavior. There is a group that feels that a population of drones in a colony makes the bees feel happy and that happy bees make more honey.11 This is referred to as Anthropomorphism which is the attribution of human traits, emotions, and intentions to non-human entities. I will meet the happy bees description halfway by accepting it as a simple explanation of a balanced, healthy colony with a low level of stress or imbalance. The activity and behavior within the colony is governed greatly by the presence or absence levels of various chemicals and pheromones. Despite our best efforts to prevent it, a colony will put forth an incredible amount of effort to produce drones. I suggest it is a short leap to say that it makes a colony happy because a desired level of balanced chemicals and pheromones in the hive involves a population of drones. I find this suggestion interesting, however I wanted something less emotional and more intellectual.
Another school of thought feels it is a matter of Homeostasis which is the maintenance of a stable equilibrium, especially through physiological processes. For further clarification in this definition, the word physiological means – characteristic of or appropriate to an organism’s healthy or normal functioning. This theory would suggest that things run smoother with a healthy population of drones thus a benefit for things like more honey production. Okay that’s getting closer, but I still wanted an explanation of specific drone behaviors resulting in increased honey production. I discovered the behaviors for the increased honey production in relation to drone population is actually a natural behavior. In a community such as a bee colony, when a group of individuals, such as nurse bees, find they are no longer needed to keep the brood warm, they will gravitate to the next most important job the colony needs. An increase in foragers would result in an increased honey production. So what is a specific behavior of drones contributing to colony that frees up the workers to graduate into foragers?
Cheap Source of Heat
Drones have a similar life cycle to the workers, in that immediately after emerging they will spend several days as house drones. Spending most of their time on the brood frames eating and maturing before leaving the hive for trips to the drone yard. During this time on the brood is when they display one benefit to the colony. The drone is a cheap source of heat for the brood. One drone can produce 1-2 times the amount of heat that a worker can with the same amount of food. Drones create heat the same way workers do by contracting their thoracic muscles. Older drones contribute more then younger drones. Both age groups contribute to keeping the brood area warm as a reaction to a low temperature brood area.6 It is not any kind of a maternal instinct from either aged drone group. They will produce heat when the brood area gets cold and prefer to congregate in the brood area because food is easily obtained from working nurse bees feeding larva. A population of drones keeping the brood warm frees up workers to gravitate into other positions such as foraging. It costs the colony less in energy to feed drones in the brood area, then for a large group of workers delegated to keeping the brood warm. Also studies have shown that when workers moved into cooling brood areas with drones on it, the heater workers do not displace the drones but took advantage of the drones heat production and worked in unison with them to warm the brood area.
Drones as a Worker Bee Predator Diversion
That various kinds of birds are fond of bees, every Apiarian knows to his cost. The King-bird (Tytannus musicapa), which devours them by the scores, is said – when he can have a choice – to eat only drones.7
The drones are slower, larger, more nutritional, noisier, congregate in groups in specific areas, and are defenseless. Exactly what predators watch for and are attracted to. They stand out as an easier prey from the more dangerous stinging workers. It would not be unreasonable to state that they seem to be a perfect prey. Through predatory birds will eat both workers and drones, they show a clear preference for drones8, 9, 10. The honey bee species has developed a predator strategy for protecting the members that are more valuable to the survival of the colony. Even with the time and resources it takes a colony to produce drones it is cheaper to sacrifice them to predators then to lose valuable workers. Producing an excess of expendable colony members to insure colony survival is not usual in nature. It is very common for some species to produce incredibly large amounts of offspring to insure a small number survive. Both termites and ants produce vast numbers of queens and kings to go forth and establish new colonies. Under normal, natural conditions, the vast majority of them will fall prey to predators. Only a tiny faction will succeed in establishing new colonies. The honey bee differs from ants and termites in that there is only one queen in the breeding behavior. However under normal conditions there is a huge number of drones involved. The value to having vastly more expendable drones then needed for breeding is the protection they provide the queen similar to the schooling of small fish like herring and sardines – there is safety in numbers. A single fish or single queen bee mixed in with large school or swarm has better odds of surviving and not being eaten. The larger the Drone Congregating Area, (DCA) the better the queen’s odds of surviving are.
In closing
In the world of beekeeping there are few always and nevers. As in bees – always do this or bees never do that. As I continue to learn more about this amazing insect, I find myself asking more questions. I find it difficult to accept answers to my questions like – because that is the way we have always done it or that’s the way it’s always been. There is always more then that to the story of the honey bee. I have no doubt if we were to even look further into the hidden world of the drone, we will find even more answers to – Why?
A Story behind the Story
As I neared completion of this report, I read Rev Langstroth’s book, Langstroth’s Hive and the Honey-Bee The Classic Beekeeper’s Manual. I was amazed how much of his work is so applicable to today’s beekeeping and was so ahead of his time in 1878. He talked about several things in his book that related to my report and I went back and revised this report to incorporate his knowledge and quotes. It is small wonder his hive has survived the test of time. His personal affection for the well-being of the bee and his care about them comes through in his work. After reading his book, anyone with a deep affection for the honey bee cannot help but feel a friendship with the Reverend.
In closing I must quote the Reverend one more time, Bee-keeping is regarded in Europe as an intellectual pursuit, and no one who studies the wonderful habits of this useful insect, will ever find the materials for new observations exhausted.
I have found that I could not agree more.
1L.L. Langstroth, Langstroth’s Hive and the Honey-Bee The Classic Beekeeper’s Manual, 1878, pg.52
2Currie RW. The biology and behaviour of drones. Bee World. 1987; 68:1298 143.
3Jon M. Harrison, Roles of Individual Honeybee Workers and Drones in Colonial Thermogenesis. Biol. 129, 53-61 (1987)
4Personal email correspondence between Dr. Thomas Seeley and the author, Ernie Schmidt, February 2012
5Page, R.E. and R.A. Metcalf 1984. A population investment sex ratio for the honey bee (Apis mellifera L.). Amer. Nat. 124: 680-702.
6H. Kovac, A. Stabentheiner, R. Brodschneider, Contribution of Honeybee Drones of Different Age to Colonial Thermoregulation. Apidologie, 2009
7L.L. Langstroth, Langstroth’s Hive and the Honey-Bee The Classic Beekeeper’s Manual, 1878, pg.7
8U.S. Department of Agriculture. Farmers’ Bulletin No. 506, Food of Some Well-known Birds of Forest, Farm, and Garden
9A.C. Beal, 1912, Life Histories of North America Birds
10H. M. Karcher, P. H. W .Biedermann, N. Hrassniggand, and K. Crailsheim, “Predator prey interaction between drones of Apis mellifera carnica and insectivorous birds”. Apidologie, 39, 302 309, 2008.
11Zeng Z.J. & Yan W.Y. 2004. Chinese research suggests drones stimulate worker foraging. Am. Bee J. 144: 232- 233.
