Stephen Fleming has been hunting DCAs for years, specifically on the small Isles of Scilly , an archipelago off the southwestern tip of Cornwall, England, where it’s windy, chilly, and frequently rains. The honey bees there are a genetic mix but with predominantly dark bees on two of the islands. They must adapt to what we might consider inhospitable conditions. They fly quite low to the ground, in most cases just three to four meters high. This has made it easy to look for DCAs using lure hoisted by a pole, and to scoop samples with a simple bug catching net.

The most fascinating thing about these DCAs however is behavior that Stephen has seen multiple times now: “I believe a lot of drones are not flying but sitting somewhere and watching and smelling for action. That way they don’t need to return so often for refueling. I have often thought this was the case but at one site this year it was very obvious that many were sitting on brambles and bracken and then rising into action when the lure was hoisted.”

This makes sense in an area where flying can be treacherous. I thought perhaps these bees, being isolated on these islands, had evolved this behavior of resting and waiting, but Robyn Underwood, an apiculture educator at Penn State told me that she once was at a DCA over a corn field where she observed the drones taking flight from the corn stalks when a rock was tossed into the air! People often ask me if the drones are resting in the treetops. I’ve assumed not, just from what I’ve read, but given these observations it makes sense that they could also be resting in the treetops when there’s no action in the sky.

Drones, drones, and more drones!

Whether you’re a hobby beekeeper or a queen breeder, educating yourself about the importance of having a healthy drone population in your apiary will enhance your beekeeping practice!

I’m excited to invite you to California or Oregon for a day of  lectures and hands-on activities, including:

• In depth learning about the biology and behavior of honey bee drones

• Semen extraction education and demonstration by Melanie Kirby, Zia Queen Bees

• Afternoon demonstration of using a UAV to find drone congregation areas (weather permitting)

We are teaming up with Emily Bondor of the Santa Cruz Bee Company in California for the May event, and Eric Mcewen from Diggin Livin in Oregon. Follow this link to register for May 4th in Santa Cruz, and for July 2 in Oregon click here.

Julia talks with Beekeeping Today about her facination with drone honey bees and especially Drone Congregation Areas, plus her quest to find as many as she can across her Georgia community.

Listen here: https://www.beekeepingtodaypodcast.com/drones-and-mapping-drone-congregation-areas-with-julia-mahood-s5-e42/

Spring is upon us and it’s time to hunt for drone congregation areas again! While drones fly in DCAs into early autumn, they are most plentiful in spring and it’s a glorious time to be standing under a DCA, listening to that deep sonorous buzz of bees looking for love. Drones get their name from the unique sound they make while in flight, and the only time I’ve been able to really hear it well is in spring.

If you need a refresher on DCA hunting, read here for how to use your UAV to look for drones. Or, check out this great article in Bee Culture’s June 2021 issue by Theresa Martin about her experience finding a DCA near her apiary. (The article begins on page 70 of the PDF, magazine page 66.)

DCA Hunting Tips:
• To keep your thread from getting caught in the UAV propellers, put your UAV on an elevated surface like a small table or stool, with the thread stretched out below weighted by your lure. When landing, try to fly your UAV forward after the lure hits the ground to stretch it out and avoid propellers.
• I recommend using Temp Queen artificial queen mandibular pheromone as an attractant, but if you keep dead queens in a jar of alcohol, you can use the marinated queen juice as a lure instead. Just put some on a piece of coffee filter or paper towel and put it in a pill bottle with holes drilled into it.
• It’s a good idea to fly over your apiary first, to make sure your lure is attracting drones. (In my experience TempQueen lasts a long time but it will get depleted at some point. Same with marinated queen juice.) Drones will fly up to your UAV regardless of the lure, so you’ll want to look to make sure they’re flying around your lure and not just coming at the UAV.
• Fly your UAV at different times in the afternoon, aiming for the warmest time of the day. Drones might be in an area later than you’d think, so circle back to the same spots in an hour if you don’t have any luck the first time.
• Watch which direction your drones are headed when they fly out, then look on Google Earth Pro for landmarks they might use (a treeline, road or waterway) and note where a drop in elevation occurs, or T junctions in the landmarks. Those are good places to start.

I’m excited to share my newest article published in American Bee Journal—Drones for Drones, A New Way To Find Drone Congregation Areas— published in 2020.

You can read the article online here: https://bluetoad.com/publication/?i=649618&article_id=3600081&view=articleBrowser