![]() ![]() Chip Taylor (the drone whisperer) with a net full of drones.Wander the world with wide-eyed wonder from the ease of your armchair, as Our Planet II, an inspiring new Netflix four-episode docuseries (premieres June 14), unveils answers to mysteries about why and how billions of animals relentlessly migrate - phenomenal travel adventures that have criss-crossed our globe for millennia. (The last two photos are from Marla Spivak.) Drones flying into a bell-shaped net with a lure in the top. I’ve never got to do the trap but it looks like lots of fun. You can lower your trap and check it out. When you find the congregation area, the drones will fly in and most will not fly out. You can make a light, bell-shaped cage with the lure in the top to attract the drones (see picture). To figure this out, you can put a small dab of paint the older drones in your colonies (check to see if they are “buzzy”) with modeling paint (we use testors), and go try to find them. Of course the drones you see aren’t necessarily from your colonies. You can check to see if drones are flying by watching the entrances of your colonies. Go out about 2pm when drones are active, and only on nice days with little wind. Wander around while listening and looking for drones. Drone congregation areas tend to be at ends of tree lines, by streams, or ends of other landscape byways. ![]() Once your supplies are ready, tie the balloon to the string or fishing line, tie the lure about 10 feet below the balloon, the go outside and release the balloon so it is about 60-70 feet in the air. Maggie and Jody with balloons in the air fishing for drones. We stick the cotton ball in a tube with the bottom cut off to prevent the alcohol from evaporating too rapidly (see picture), but you can use whatever you have around, like saran wrap. For the pheromone lure, we keep a jar of alcohol around that we toss dead virgin queens in, and soak a cotton ball with the alcohol. Releasing and re-calling balloon easier, but you can use really anything that winds string (like kite string – see picture). We use a fishing rod and line as the string since it makes Queen pheromone lure tube with bottom cut off. This a phenomenon you can test if you round-up a large balloon (at least 14”) filled with helium, a long and sturdy string, a way to wind the string, and a queen pheromone lure. He knows exactly where they mate and the virgins and drones from the same yard fly to the same spot. There is even one really neat beekeeper in Australia, Joe Horner, who controls his bees so they mate later in the evening when other drones and virgins have gone back to their colonies as a way to control matings. I have talked to beekeepers that have seen congregation areas much close to the apiary and speculate that both the queens and drones go to the same site. However, after talking to beekeepers that have seen the drone congregation areas I am unsure if the distances are true. Some of the books say drones and queens fly different distances away from the hive to prevent inbreeding. These drone congregation areas are sometimes even in the same from year-to-year. Drones gather in specific spots, queens fly by, and the drones chase her. Drones and queens mate generally over 60 feet up in the air. Last week, Jody Gerdts and Maggie Shanahan went fishing for drones. ![]()
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