A drone congregation area is an aerial region where honeybee drones and virgin queens gather to mate.

Makeup

Drone congregation areas are typically about in diameter and above ground. They have the shape of an upward-pointing cone, with the drone density being lower towards the top. The boundaries are sharply defined: drones will not mate with queens even slightly outside the area. Over the course of a day, approximately 12,000 drones visited one drone congregation area, and the drones represented at any one congregation area can be from hundreds of different colonies. However, these population numbers are highly variable depending on circumstances.

Geographical features

It is not known exactly why drone congregation areas have the locations they do, or how bees locate them. However, there is considerable evidence that they depend on static features of the landscape. Drones will congregate in these areas even in the absence of queens, and stay in similar areas year-to-year, with one drone congregation area staying in the same location for almost 200 years. Additionally, if drones are brought in from outside the local area, they still quickly find the local congregation areas. Most drone congregation areas are open spaces surrounded by a barrier; the open area provides visibility while the barrier (vegetation, hills, etc.) provides shelter from the wind. The bees also tend to fly to low elevations. South-facing locations are also preferred in the Northern hemisphere; this may be due to differences in

solar irradiance Solar irradiance is the power per unit area (surface power density) received from the Sun in the form of electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range of the measuring instrument. Solar irradiance is measured in watts per square metre ( ...

or the bees'

magnetoreception Magnetoreception is a sense which allows an organism to detect the Earth's magnetic field. Animals with this sense include some arthropods, molluscs, and vertebrates (fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals). The sense is mainly used ...

Flyways

Drones find their way to drone congregation areas along flyways, specific shared trajectories. These generally follow features in the landscape, such as lines of trees. Drone congregation areas often occur at the intersection of flyways, though not all intersections form congregation areas. Flyways, like drone congregation areas, are stable over a period of years.

Role of pheromones

Pheromones A pheromone () is a secreted or excreted chemical factor that triggers a social response in members of the same species. Pheromones are chemicals capable of acting like hormones outside the body of the secreting individual, to affect the behavi ...

also play a role in coalescing drones to the exact location of the queen. The International Bee Research Association's standard procedure for locating drone congregation areas involves using a queen or a (pheromone-marked) dummy queen to attract drones from the diffuse cluster of a typical drone congregation area into a visible clump. In addition to drone attraction to queens, drones are attracted to other drones and virgin queens are attracted to drones.

Notes

References

* {{Cite book , last=Winston , first=Mark , year=1987 , title=The Biology of the Honey Bee , url=https://archive.org/details/biologyofhoneybe0000wins , url-access=registration , location=Cambridge, Mass. , publisher=Harvard University Press , isbn=978-0-674-07408-8 , oclc=24079339 Bee ecology Insect reproduction Western honey bee behavior