thanks perry the article makes sense, if you read this part, it's a no brainer......
"Male honey bees: lazy, but important
The observation that male drone honey bees die much sooner and have a poorer body condition compared to female worker honey bees when infected with the parasite Nosema ceranae is particularly worrisome, say's doctoral student Gina Tanner: 'Although drones do not perform important colony maintenance functions like cleaning and feeding like the workers, they are responsible for mating with queens so that the next generation of honey bees can be produced within a colony. Without strong, fit drones, the chance of successful matings with queens could be severely compromised.' Recent studies, mainly coming out of the United States, suggest that queen failure is a major cause of colony death. Early death of queens could be the result of queens not obtaining sufficient quantity and quality of sperm from drones during mating."
