Drone

The drone is distinguished by a significant size and development of the sense organs in comparison with working bees; their eyes are large, touching each other from above; antennae are relatively long; proboscis short; chest broad with long wings; they have no apparatus for collecting flower pollen (see Tibiya ); the sting is also not, and in its place is placed the aggregate apparatus; the belly is oval and rounded at the posterior end.

The uterus begins to lay the droned eggs after the worker bees were bred (in central Russia in the first half of May ); these eggs are laid in special larger cells (8 mm in diameter) - this is the so-called drone donkey . After 3 days, the larvae ( drone hearth ) come out of the eggs, which the working bees feed on milk, honey and pollen . The larvae develop 6 days , after which the working bees close the cells with convex (humpback) lids; the larvae turn into pupae , from which drones are removed after 15 days. Thus, the entire development of the drone lasts 24 days.

The drones are hatching in those swarms in which the uterus is more or less old, the same bees, in which the young queen is young, retired that same year (the same year), do not usually take out the drones. Sometimes drone eggs are laid by mistake in smaller cells intended for the development of working bees . In such cases, these cells are also sealed with convex lids ( humpback ), and not flat, as when working bees develop in them; drones leaving such cells are much smaller in size.

The purpose of the drones is to mate with the queen bee ^[2] . During the play (mating flight) the drones rise from the womb rather high in the air, often flying far from the hive; 5-8 of them copulate with the uterus; at the same time, the aggregate body of the drone comes off and remains in the genital opening of the uterus, while the drone instantly dies and falls with the uterus to the ground. After that, the uterus can return to the hive with a “train” of white color - fragments of the genitals of the drone, so the beekeeper can visually determine that the uterus has already “flown around”. For successful fertilization of barren queens, a certain density of drones for the air volume at the apiary is necessary.

When the uterus leaves the nest, it is always surrounded by a whole club of drones flying behind it. Therefore, birds that feed on bees, for example, bee-eaters , in the days of their departure, the mothers grab mostly drones, but never - queens (provided that there are other beehives nearby), since they cannot break through the close structure of the suitor. The uterus flies very far from the native hive. Accompanying her drones lag behind on the road. The uterus mates with people from other hives. Far from the apiary, she is almost in no danger of being eaten by the bee-eater - this bird hunts bees near the hives, where there is a lot of food. In addition, very soon drones from “alien” families surround the uterus. If there are no other apiaries nearby, the uterus flies far farther than the drones. Not meeting drones from other apiaries, they return home without a "suite"; at the same time, up to 60% of them are eaten by birds during the incubation of eggs, and almost all of them are fed during nestling ^{[ what? ]} .

At the end of the bribe, before the beginning of wintering, the bees expel all drones from the nest, and also kill the brood broods ^{[1]. The} exception is leaving the drones in the bee colony to hibernate when the queen does not have time to fly around in the late autumn. For example: a sharp frost hit and winter began. To do this, the bees leave some amount of drones so that during the spring fly-over the uterus can mate and continue the existence of the bee colony. The drones themselves do not survive. Since a large number of drones are harmful to beehives in the sense that they eat a lot of honey (three times more than working bees), besides working bees spend a lot of food and time to feed drone worms, beekeepers try to get rid of drones anyway . In order for them to be removed in smaller quantities, remove honeycombs with drone cells and substitute ready-made bee honeycombs (“dry”); thus, the uterus is forced to lay only fertilized eggs. It is also believed that the old uterus lay more unfertilized eggs, in particular, therefore, the queens are trying to regularly (every two years or more) update.

• Working bee
• Honeybee

• Drone // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : 86 t. (82 t. And 4 extra.). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Matusevich P. Why do we need drones? // Science and life . - 1966. - № 9 . - p . 39 .
• The process of mating bees (Youtube)