Hallelujah!
The bees have been living like nuns in a convent these past
8 months – barren sisters led by an old matriarch. But that’s all changing because
right now the colonies are raising male bees, called drones, as fast as they can.
Drones don’t do much around the hive except eat and
occasionally lift their feet when one of their sisters is doing some cleaning.
You’d expect the workers to get irritable with these slouches, but the opposite
is true - a happy hive has lots of drones.
Drones are big; almost twice the size of their sisters. They
have powerful wings and huge eyes and just one ambition – to mate!
It takes about 2 weeks for a drone to become sexually mature.
During this time he will develop his flying and navigation skills and once he’s
competent he’ll spend his afternoons hanging out with his brothers and the lads
from other hives in a part of the sky known as a drone congregation area. Think
of it as a boys’ afternoon out, which it is, until a virgin queen comes along ....
She’s the ultimate
femme fatale who deliberately seeks out these drone congregations. She’s game for
certain and the boys know it. A chase through the skies begins as dozens of
drones pursue the young queen, all wanting to mate with her.
They should be careful what they wish for! Those with the
best eyesight and strongest wings soon catch up with the queen and seize her
with their legs, arch their abdomen and immediately penetrate her.
‘Hallelujah!’
It’s all over in a second but it blows the drone away .....
from his genitalia! The poor drone, no longer in possession of his
tickle-tackle, drops dead to earth. The queen meantime continues her flight
with his lost bee-hood still in situ.
She’ll mate with several more drones before returning to the hive, with each
successful coupling resulting in a cry of ‘Hallelujah!’ and another drone
dropping dead from the sky.
So the Weather Girls are right, from a bee’s perspective, it
really is raining men!
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