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I had strong orientation flights/cleansing flights going on at my home hives yesterday. I looked on the concrete and saw 1 dead drone, fully formed, and 1 walking around. I picked up the live drone, and it appeared fully formed and healthy. It took flight and did not land back on the concrete. It is possible that these drones overwintered, but I don't think so. I am really anxious to have a sunny 60°F+ day so that I can go into some of these hives and determine if drone production really is beginning this early.

I have not seen any drones in a few months. The guys that came and talked to us about pollen patties a few years ago had the theory that a hive that over wintered drones was a strong healthy hive, of course feeding pollen patties helped.

I have been wanting to go in and clean off the bottom boards and get a start on checker boarding, its about that time.
Looks like Tuesday supposed to be 60 and partly sunny and Friday 58 and sunny per weather.com I may look at a few hives if its not too windy.

I also saw some drones this week but didn't pull frames and look for drone cells.

I took advantage of the good weather to check the 2 hives at the Ag Center that the club maintains. Ag 1 was a dead out. Several hundred dead bees in the hive. It had stores. I treated late summer with Apilife Var for varroa and it was queenright after that. I plan to go through the frames thoroughly in the next few days to see what I can see.

Ag 2 was very active and bringing in pollen. I did a quick look at the highest super with brood. There was lots of capped worker brood and a good amount of capped drone brood along the bottom of a frame. There were a few drones walking around on the comb.

I have some drones flying here at the house, not large numbers, but definitely out and about. The bees are really bringing in pollen and I can see them working the red maple down the street and David's flowering quince next door.

I saw my first drone walking on my driveway pad here at the house this afternoon. It was fully formed and appeared to be new but it could not fly. I'm going to take that as a hopeful sign that at least one of the hives here is doing well enough that it is starting to produce drone brood in addition to building up worker brood.

I watched my sole remaining hive for about 20 minutes this afternoon. Heavy foraging, bringing in lots of pollen, and making lots of visits to the water pans, but didn't see a single drone.

Paul

If I saw a drone walking and couldn't fly, I think I would be doing a mite count. It's too early in the season to be seeing that.

If it had deformed wings, I would be more concerned. I always seem to have early drones that look great but cannot fly, soon (I hope) followed by fully functional drones.

My bees are flying after the snow and ice storm and the strong nuc is bringing in pollen. I picked up a drone off of the snow and it took off and flew back to the nuc. This is the first drone capable of flight that I have seen this season.