9/20/09 – Drone Collection
Today I opened up the hive in preparation for tomorrow’s class with Alexa. I took a couple of drawn frames out of the hive, and shook one off, hoping to get a few drones for show-and-tell.
While collecting the drones, and putting them in a glass jar, I had visions of some youngster taking the jar, and opening it – and even though the bees inside couldn’t sting, I couldn’t imagine that we’d be able to settle the class down, if they did manage to escape, so I released my male friends.
I was able to get some neat pictures of some of the workers making good use of their nassanoff glands, however. The guard bees basically stick their rear ends in the air, and use their scent glands to guide other bees back to the hive – however, I had never gotten a picture of them in action.
However, when I shook out the frame on the picnic table, there were many doing this at once. Here’s one shot of them in action.
The Nassanoff gland in action
