How to Requeen a Drone Queen

A drone queen is one who lays unfertilized eggs (not good for a bee colony). In order to make more worker bees the queen must lay fertilized eggs. Fertilization is accomplished by the drones (male bees). The queen mates with several drones to insure adequate semen for her egg laying. If the queen has no more semen she will switch to laying drone eggs only. This can happen in the spring when the queen over winters and runs out of semen or if the queen is not mated well (see the section on queen cell requeening).

In either case, when a drone laying queen is discovered it means that a hive will not be producing any new workers. To remedy the situation it is possible to requeen the hive with a virgin queen. This will require removing the problem queen, taking a frame of fresh egg containing cells from another good colony and placing it in the hive with the drone laying queen. The worker bees will build a queen cell for the new queen and soon enough it will have a new fertilized mother. This will allow the hive to produce the needed worker bees for the next brood cycle.

If the drone laying queen is found in the summer it can be more difficult to requeen her. In this case the best solution is to unite the colony with another strong colony and let them raise a new queen together. This will give both colonies a chance to thrive and provide bee power for the entire season.

The problem with a drone laying queen in the fall is that she will have no more eggs to lay. If she continues to lay drone eggs the hive will run out of worker bees for the season. In this case it would be a good idea to remove the queen, place her in a small cage and put her into a hive that is ready for a new queen. This will prevent the drone laying queen from destroying the hive and it will give the other hive a chance to raise a new fertile queen for itself.

The best way to tell a drone queen from a normal queen is by looking at her eyes. The eyes of a drone bee are larger than those of a worker bee. The stubby looking boxy body of a drone is very distinct as well. The drone’s main purpose is to mate with a queen, therefore it has a barbed appendage that sticks out of its abdomen when mating occurs. When a drone successfully mates with a queen it will do so with such force that the drones endophallus rips out of its abdomen and it usually dies shortly afterwards. If a drone does not survive the act of mating it will be kicked out of the hive in the winter by the worker bees. They will not need him for any work in the future and he will take up food resources.