The author began beekeeping 35 years ago and has periodically experienced drone laying in some…

The author began beekeeping 35 years ago and has periodically experienced drone laying in some colonies every 3-5 years. In 1977, he developed a method to address this issue, which he has used ever since. His bees winter in sixteen-frame hives, each divided in half with a partition that has a window covered by a queen excluder. Each half houses one colony with a queen, with the front wall painted white on the right and blue on the left. In April 2010, he found a drone-laying colony in the right half of the hive, during a time of weak bee activity and limited blooming of nectar sources.