peepie Posted May 18, 2010 Share Posted May 18, 2010 We got our first nucleus on Saturday and put it into our hive. The bees apart formt he queen all seemed very much the same size. Today however, we have noticed a couple of much bigger bees going into the hive. They seem a little fuzzier than most of ours but are definitely not Bumble bees. Do we have some gate crashers or are these some of ours that have suddenly grown? Thanks xx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
optimistic1bryan Posted May 18, 2010 Share Posted May 18, 2010 hi. I suspect that what you are seeing are Drones these generally are larger than the average worker and are evident by the hairier bottoms. In a wild colony you may expect up to 20% drones. in a cultivated coloy we restrict the number of drones by only using worker foundation. b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peepie Posted May 18, 2010 Author Share Posted May 18, 2010 thanks, I wondered if that might be the case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toots Posted May 19, 2010 Share Posted May 19, 2010 Apparently from what i have been told drones have the "right" to enter any hive they like and may wonder from 1 hive to another Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
