Poor drones. You have to feel bad for them. They are bred by the worker bees for one purpose: mating. Some of you male readers may be thinking, sah-weet!, but I promise you, a drone's life isn't as glorious as you'd expect. First off, drones are incapable of taking care of themselves. They need worker bees to tend to them. Which of course, kind of sets them up for what must be a 24/7 hailstorm of nagging and complaining : "Why can't you sweep the floor? Or do the dishes? Or take care of the youngin's? All you want to do is lounge around, watch football, and generally be useless." Yikes!
Second, when drones venture out on a mission to give their DNA to a vibrant, young, sassy virgin queen, it is almost definitely a suicide mission. Granted, the drones probably aren't aware of this macabre fact, seeing as they come from an unfertilized egg, but still, seems a high price to pay. Once a male has made his deposit, the queen tears out the probe...ouchy! Even if the drone doesn't pass along genetic material and drop dead from the sky after having his reproductive parts not-so-tenderly handled; certain death awaits him. We'll get to that.
Third, the worker bees know something that the drones do not. Varroa mites LOVE them some drone larva! They love drone larva so much, that some species of bees will rear more drones to ensure that the varroa mites feed off the seemingly useless males and therefore secure a strong colony of females. The strategy is a good one indeed, as beekeepers will even encourage this practice by giving the workers a bare frame to build drone cells on.
The lowly trudge of the drone, a trudge towards imminent death, is just that, lowly. Come late summer, when the colony begins preparations for winter, the worker bees escort their male counterparts to the door and give them the boot. Bye bye drone-y, good luck fending for yourself! Well, sadly enough, that's just the way nature intended it. Drones cost energy, energy that the colony cannot afford to waste.
But fear not, reader. Next year, more drones will be raised, and the cycle will continue, and more bees will be produced, which is infact, the whole point anyway.
Second, when drones venture out on a mission to give their DNA to a vibrant, young, sassy virgin queen, it is almost definitely a suicide mission. Granted, the drones probably aren't aware of this macabre fact, seeing as they come from an unfertilized egg, but still, seems a high price to pay. Once a male has made his deposit, the queen tears out the probe...ouchy! Even if the drone doesn't pass along genetic material and drop dead from the sky after having his reproductive parts not-so-tenderly handled; certain death awaits him. We'll get to that.
Third, the worker bees know something that the drones do not. Varroa mites LOVE them some drone larva! They love drone larva so much, that some species of bees will rear more drones to ensure that the varroa mites feed off the seemingly useless males and therefore secure a strong colony of females. The strategy is a good one indeed, as beekeepers will even encourage this practice by giving the workers a bare frame to build drone cells on.
The lowly trudge of the drone, a trudge towards imminent death, is just that, lowly. Come late summer, when the colony begins preparations for winter, the worker bees escort their male counterparts to the door and give them the boot. Bye bye drone-y, good luck fending for yourself! Well, sadly enough, that's just the way nature intended it. Drones cost energy, energy that the colony cannot afford to waste.
But fear not, reader. Next year, more drones will be raised, and the cycle will continue, and more bees will be produced, which is infact, the whole point anyway.
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