28. The Life of the Male Honeybee—The Drone.

The Life of the Male Honeybee—The Drone.

Drones, the male honeybees, live a short but fascinating life that is focused on one singular critical purpose: reproduction. Unlike the busy female worker bees, drones do not participate in hive maintenance, foraging, or defending the colony. Their sole role is to mate with a queen from a different hive, and even that opportunity is rare.

Drones are born in larger, domed brood cells, usually located toward the edges of the comb. A queen bee lays unfertilized eggs—which develop into drones—through a process called haplodiploidy. She typically lays these eggs

in spring or early summer, when mating season begins, and the colony is strong enough to support their presence. The production of drones is a strategic decision made by the hive worker bee collective to ensure the genetic diversity and future propagation of the species.

Despite their larger size, drones rely entirely on worker bees to be fed, as they cannot forage or feed themselves. They are not equipped with the physical structures or instincts required for foraging or self-feeding. Here is why:

Lack of Foraging Anatomy:

Drones do not have pollen baskets (corbiculae) on their legs, which are necessary to collect pollen. Their mouthparts are also shorter and less developed than those of worker bees, making them ineffective at sipping nectar from flowers. They’re simply not built for gathering food.

No Wax Glands or Mandibles for Work:

Drones do not possess wax glands or strong mandibles (jaws) suited for comb building or cleaning tasks. Their bodies are designed for flight and mating—not for participating in the work of the hive.

Instinctual Focus on Reproduction:

Biologically and behaviorally, drones are programmed with a single purpose: to mate with a queen. Evolution has streamlined them to conserve energy for this task. Since they don’t contribute to food production or hive maintenance, their bodies haven’t evolved the means to sustain themselves independently.

They also lack stingers, so they cannot defend the hive. Instead, mature drones leave the hive during the day and fly to special areas known as drone congregation areas (DCAs). These are consistent year to year and serve as aerial meeting spots where hundreds or even thousands of drones gather, waiting for a virgin queen to fly by.

Drones find the queen midair using a combination of smell and eyesight, with smell (pheromones) being the most important factor.

Smell—Pheromones Guide Them

The queen emits a powerful sex pheromone called queen mandibular pheromone (QMP) and other related compounds when she takes her mating flight. These chemical signals disperse into the air and act like a scent trail. Drones are extremely sensitive to this pheromone and can detect even minute traces from hundreds of meters away.

Their antennae are highly specialised and packed with olfactory (smell) receptors that detect these pheromones. Once they pick up the scent, they home in on it, flying upwind in a zigzag pattern to locate the queen's precise position.

Eyesight—Spotting the Queen

Drones also have exceptionally large compound eyes that cover a significant portion of their head. These are significantly larger than those of worker bees and are adapted to:

• Track fast-moving objects in bright sunlight.

• Spot a flying queen visually once they is close to her (within a few meters).

This is especially helpful in the chaotic environment of the Drone Congregation Area (DCA) where hundreds or thousands of drones are flying. Vision plays a supporting role in closing the final gap once the queen is located by scent.

The mating happens during flight and is incredibly competitive—only a few drones out of thousands succeed. The successful ones die immediately after mating, as their genitalia breaks off inside the queen, leading to their death. The majority, however, never get the chance. They return to the hive, often to face a harsh fate.

This highly refined system ensures that only the strongest and most responsive drones manage to mate, which helps maintain healthy genetic diversity in bee populations.

A YouTube video showing drone mating. Спаривание пчелиной матки с трутнем. Drone Mating.