New Year New Buzz Buzz
About a week ago, I was checking a client’s beehives and found drone cells. My first thought was, “Sheesh, spring may be coming quicker than I anticipated.” I guess I shouldn’t have been too shocked—it’s been relatively nice weather considering we’re in the middle of winter.
Before I continue any further, thanks for reading this far! I’m hoping this blog will serve as both a guide for new beekeepers and a journal for myself as I document my beekeeping journey.
Less talk about myself (Nobody cares!) and more talk about the buzziness. Bizzness? You get the point.
Drone Cells and Early Signs of Swarming
The cells circled above are drone cells. You can tell because they are larger and extend out further than normal worker cells. You will usually find them on the outside of the brood nest or where there is more space.
Typically, during winter, the colony kicks out most—if not all—of the drones. A drone’s only job is mating, so in the winter, they don’t contribute much besides sitting around, watching the game, and eating all the honey. Since the colony needs to conserve resources to survive winter, they can’t afford to keep drones around.
Seeing drone cells at this time of year is an early indicator of swarming. Drones exist solely to mate with queens, and their presence suggests the hive is preparing to raise new queens. Swarming occurs when a colony raises a new queen cell, and the old queen, along with roughly half the bees, leaves in search of a new home. If you start seeing drone cells, it’s time to start looking for queen cells…
Maybe that’ll be the next blog post.
Seasonal Changes and Bee Activity
If you drive around the Northern Bay Area right now, you’ll see Acacia trees (Acacia melanoxylon) beginning to bloom. Bees are actively bringing in bright yellow pollen from these trees. While Acacia is considered an invasive species, it does provide an early pollen source for bees when other options are scarce.
The vineyard cover crops haven’t bloomed yet, and the wild mustard is just starting to pop up here and there.
So, what does this all mean?
It means colonies are beginning to raise brood and expand their populations. Pollen is the bees’ protein source and plays a crucial role in raising healthy brood. When abundant pollen starts entering the hive, it signals the queen to lay more eggs. There are other contributing factors, but pollen is a major trigger for brood rearing.
This is a great example of great frame. We have emerging brood in the white circle followed by fresh eggs recently laid by the queen. After that the eggs/brood are surrounded by bee bread (pollen) in the red ring and finally a nice beutiful band of honey in the green. This time of the year it is important to make sure they have adequate food.
What I’m Looking for Right Now
Depending on the colony’s size and strength, I’m trying to gauge what the hive will do in the next 2–3 weeks. As I mentioned earlier, seeing drone cells is an early indicator of potential swarming.
If you’ve successfully overwintered a strong double-deep colony, you can bet your britches it’s going to want to swarm. If it’s a smaller colony—like a five-frame nuc you’ve nursed through winter or a single-deep hive—it might be time to add a box and give it room to grow.
Most of my hives are double-deeps with hefty food stores. What I’m looking for now is whether the queen has enough room to lay. If she doesn’t, I need to make space. How do we do that? Simple—we replace frames with just foundation or open-celled frames to give the queen more room to lay eggs.
Preventing Swarming
The main principle behind preventing swarming is making sure the colony doesn’t feel congested. There are other reasons a hive might swarm—such as an aging queen, disease, pests, etc.—but generally, a healthy hive will want to swarm when it has outgrown its current home.
And we don’t want tenants that split before paying rent, right? (Honey analogy? Kind of funny? Sorry, I’m new here.)
Looking Ahead
In the coming weeks, months, years—even eons—I’m hoping to continue posting and documenting what beekeeping is like in Wine Country. I’m lucky enough to manage hives for some amazing people, and hopefully, we can produce some incredible honey for them!
Buzz Buzz
-Nick 1.28.25 9:14 PM
