Boys will be boys — The life of a Drone
Fewer than 2% of a honey bee hive are male, yet the lives they live are somehow familiar.
Hanging with the guys, shootin’ the breeze, having a great time until a hot young thing flutters by… then BOOM! It’s an all out race to get to her first. One by one they take their shot at her, and one by one she knocks them dead, never recovering from her irresistible attraction.
Thank you Hilary Kearney!
Males representing less than 2% of the hive are called Drones. While a female Worker Bee spends her day caring for the hive, drones do not gather nectar or pollen (at least not deliberately), help in nursing or assist with hive construction. So, why keep them around? Why keep feeding and cleaning up after them when all they do all afternoon is hang out with the other drones a good distance from their own hive? A drone’s primary role is to mate with an unfertilized queen. And they take their job very seriously.
With eyes twice the size of the females, the drones spend their time watching the skies for a gorgeous virgin queen.
This superior vision is important in taking aim, as mating is done in flight. His body is bigger than those of the worker bees, but usually smaller than a queen. However, these boys need to overcome their heavier bodies in order to fly fast enough to accompany a queen in flight, so they practice daily to build up the stamina.
A queen will mate with many drones, and she takes no prisoners. Should a drone succeed in catching her, he is so excited by the capture that he physically cannot pull away. But, she will not wait for him. She continues on her speedy flight, tearing some of his abdomen from his body. An experience worth dying for.
While the drone is highly specialized to perform one function, mating, they actually do two other tasks… keeping themselves comfortable & “protecting” the ladies.
If the hive should get too cold they will join in with the rest of the hive in shivering to create heat. Likewise if it should get too hot, they will cool the hive by fanning with their wings. Should a potential predator arrive, they will attempt to “protect” the ladies. But, without a stinger the best they can do is to surround the predator to disorient it (kind of like a flash mob at the mall).
However, it’s not all fun and games for these guys. The ladies know that the drones have a lifespan of 90 days and that they are dead weight… they didn’t gather any food, they didn’t help raise the young, and they didn’t help build the hive. So, before winter comes the ladies kick those boys out of the hive to fend for themselves. See ya later fellas…
The ladies rule this kingdom, and from late Autumn until Spring the girls will have a nice slumber party keeping cozy and well fed in their happy hive.
BUZZcoin™ is using blockchain technology to gather data from its BC-HMD™ (BUZZcoin Hive Mind Device) and BC-QMM™ (BUZZcoin Queen Middleware Masternodes) SmartHives Devices all over the planet with gathered on the BC-HMN™ (Hive Mind Network) the goal of reversing the bee depopulation. For more information about our project please see our Whitepaper at https://www.buzzcoin.info/wp.pdf
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