About twenty beekeepers from Penn State Extension, the Grozinger Bee Lab, and various characters from all over the region were invited to State College to participate in a Drone Festival put on by Robyn Underwood and Kate Anton along with their capable helpers. It was a trial run for some ideas and activities that they’re going to do in the Dude Program (Deep Understanding of Drones Education program)

Video courtesy of Eric Malcolm

We were there to learn all about drones of the honeybee variety. They’re fascinating creatures, the drones. They’re very fragile. Of course all bees are, but the drones are the easiest to damage while they’re pupating, which they do for a long time, and they die if they aren’t constantly attended to. Otherwise they’re a lot of fun.

Here are some of the things we did:

• Marking drones
• Liquid nitrogen hygienic behavior test (do the bees remove dead pupae)
• Harbo VSH test (do the bees suppress some mite reproduction)
• UBeeO – Unhealthy Brood Odor (to what degree do the bees uncap pupa in response to a known ‘bad’ odor that causes some bees to uncap)

All of these are different measures of behaviors that are thought to help control mites. We didn’t look at ankle biters but we discussed them.

We also spent some time working with drones to collect semen for instrumental insemination of queens. This was a bit gruesome, involving a lot of drone squeezing to recover the semen. A 100% fatal operation for the drones involved.

We learned to find drones ‘in the wild’ by searching for a drone congregation air space (DCAS plural form is DCASs). These are also called drone congregation areas (DCAs), but ‘area’ is a geocentric term and we’re talking about something in the sky, baby.

All in all it was a fantastic experience. Especially delightful was the camaraderie among the beekeepers from all over the state. Apparently, we all like a good oatmeal stout, especially in a very tall dispenser.

Images courtesy of Mark Gingrich and Eric Malcolm

If you are interested in a more extensive program studying drones, drone health, and behavior check out the Dude Program (Deep Understanding of Drones Education program) which is taking applications. You need to have a bunch of colonies and be able to collect and share data.

Our hosts did a great job!

• Robyn Underwood
• Kate Anton
• Darryll Barkhouse
• Casey Darnell

Here are some links to additional information from Robyn:

• Here is a great video about finding DCAs. 
• Here is a comprehensive paper about studying bee behavior that has a section about finding DCAs.
• Here are the latest instructions for performing the VSH (Harbo) test.
• Here is a publication about how to perform a freeze-killed brood assay for hygienic behavior.