Excessive Drones

Lovely summer day today and the bees were making up for the lost days through storms. They were very busy, lots of pollen coming in.  But....

 There were a lot of drones coming and going, I even saw one drone being evicted.  I know they do this towards the end of summer, but I thought it might be a bit early to be planning for winter.

Drones may just be on 'cleansing' flights and be doing it, apparently, more frequently due to the poor weather recently, or they may be warming up for a mating flight...which is worrying.  I had a keek through windows and entrances and couldn't see any Queen cells, so I am assuming Queen Kylie is still strong, but the frequency of the drones is a bit worrying. I did tell my boys, who are currently on summer holiday, that if they did swarm, it was their job to chase the swarm down and bring it back.  Not sure they took me seriously...but I really was!

Cheeky blighter, this bumble did go in and and it was not welcomed.  I didn't see it leave, but looking through the window, I did see a few of my girls taking it on.

Drone being kicked out, it was probably a useless free-loading teenage drone.....Oops, humanising bees.

 Another drone.  They are much larger and blacker than the girls. The girls are a lot smaller than the bees  I started with.  I was reading that the smaller bees have a better defence against Varroa and that is the way that the bees combat Varroa, the trouble with foundation is that the size of the cells are standard and takes the choice away from the bees, if they are left to their own defences, perhaps they could be more proactive in 'self' defence. Please don't consider this as solid advice, I am only choosing to relay information that suits my natural (also very inexperienced) cause!  I am currently worried about my bees running away from home, or that my queen has run out of sperm and I am housing a box of useless non productive men bees.

Thanks for reading, and please, if you have any advice, I really will be interested in hearing it, I do understand that every bee-keeper has their own experiences and advice, so I am more than willing to listen to all, and make a judgement call,