What Does a Drone Bee Do? The Male Honey Bee Explained

When I open up a hive in a wall or a roof, most of the bees I see are workers. Every so often a bigger, chunkier bee with huge eyes walks across the comb, and homeowners watching from a safe distance always ask what it is. That's a drone, the male honey bee, and his life is a lot stranger than most people expect.

Short answer: A drone is a male honey bee whose only job is to mate with a virgin queen from another colony. Drones have no stinger, don't collect food, build comb or care for brood, and they die during mating. Colonies raise them in the warm months and push the rest out in the fall.

What is a drone bee?

A drone is a male honey bee. Every colony has three kinds of bees: one queen, a large number of female workers, and, in the warm months, a smaller number of male drones.

Drones come from unfertilized eggs. According to UF/IFAS Extension, unfertilized eggs develop into drones, while the workers and queens are female. Michigan State University entomologist Zachary Huang puts it bluntly in his queen and drone biology notes: drones have no father.

You can spot one by his shape. UF/IFAS describes drones as having a barrel-shaped thorax and eyes that touch at the top of the head. Next to a worker, a drone looks thick and blunt, and to my ear he sounds louder when he flies.

What does a drone bee do in the hive?

Inside the hive, almost nothing. Drones don't forage for nectar or pollen, don't make wax, don't feed larvae and don't guard the entrance. All of that is women's work in a honey bee colony, done by the worker bees.

UF/IFAS says a drone's only purpose is to mate with a virgin queen from another colony. Purdue Extension says the same thing in fewer words: drones are males whose only function is to mate. The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension honey bee biology guide adds that few of them ever mate successfully.

So a drone spends his days eating stored food, resting on the comb, and waiting for good flying weather.

Do drone bees sting?

No. Drones can't sting at all. UF/IFAS states it plainly: only female honey bees have a stinger.

I've had people get nervous when a drone lands on them during a removal. There's no reason to be. He can buzz loudly and look intimidating, but he has nothing to sting with. The bees to respect are the workers guarding the colony, and here in Southern California, where colonies may carry Africanized genetics, I take that seriously. I go over that in my post on Africanized bees in Southern California.

How do drone bees mate with a queen?

Mating happens in the air, away from the hive, at places called drone congregation areas. Drones from many colonies gather there, and a virgin queen flies through.

The timing, from Huang's notes and the Texas A&M guide:

• A drone becomes sexually mature at around 10 to 12 days old.
• Drones stay in their home colony for the first couple of weeks of life, then start making daily afternoon flights.
• Texas A&M says they fly for 2 to 4 hours each afternoon at drone congregation areas.
• Huang lists mating flights between about 3 and 5 p.m.
• UF/IFAS says all of a queen's mating happens in the first two weeks of her life, and she mates with about 15 drones.

UF/IFAS Extension notes the queen mainly mates with drones from other colonies. So the drones a colony raises end up fathering workers in hives they'll never see.

What happens to drones after mating?

The drone dies. Huang's notes state that drones die during mating, and a UC Agriculture and Natural Resources article, "Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?", sums it up the same way: they mate and then they die.

The drones that never get a chance to mate don't have it much better. Once the season winds down, the workers stop putting up with them.

Why do worker bees kick drones out of the hive?

Drones eat the colony's stored food and don't bring any in, so the workers push them out when the season is over. The UC ANR article says that once the honey-gathering season is done, the workers evict the drones, and drones don't survive the winter.

The Texas A&M guide and Huang's notes both describe drones being kicked out of the colony as winter arrives or in the fall. Purdue Extension adds that drones are produced only during the warm months.

How can you tell a drone from a worker or queen?

Size and shape give it away. Here's a quick comparison:

The queen details come from UF/IFAS, which describes her as larger than the other bees with a longer, plumper abdomen, and says her stinger has reduced barbs so she doesn't die when she uses it. If you're curious about her side of the story, read the role of the queen bee in the hive.

Does seeing drones mean there's a hive in my wall?

Not by itself, but it's a clue worth paying attention to. Drones are raised inside an established colony, so if you're seeing big-eyed drones along with a steady flow of workers in and out of a crack in your stucco, there's very likely a colony living inside.

That kind of colony won't move out on its own, and spraying it just leaves dead bees, comb and honey behind the wall. The better fix is a live structural bee hive removal: I open the area, take out the bees and all of the comb, and the bees go to a beekeeper instead of being killed. Structural removals run $375 to $1,000 depending on the job, and they come with a 6-month guarantee that the bees won't come back.

Got bees coming and going from your house?

Call or text a photo to (626) 487-6052 and I'll tell you what I'm seeing. Inspections are free. I answer calls and texts 7 days a week and do removals Monday through Saturday in Orange County, the Inland Empire and Los Angeles County.