When Is A Drone Sexually Mature

[Jen]

I have a hive that has capped drones. This hive also has two emergency queen cells ready to hatch any moment now. The original queen I saw last week is gone. There are no drones coming and going in the entrances yet. With the capped drones.. how long until they are sexually mature. It's too early in our spring weather for this hive to hatch a new queen without mature drones yet.

Should I buy a mated queen and replace this newly hatched queen?

[neillsayers]

About 2 weeks after they emerge. If your queen cells are capped it might be iffy that they will be ready during the virgin queens window for breeding but if there are  other drones within 5 miles she'll find them.

Here is a good link.
http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/droneraise.html

[Bakersdozen]

On day 1 queen lays an unfertilized egg.
On day 24 a drone emerges.
On day 36 a drone will reach sexual maturity.  This # could be short.  It can be realistically 15-20 days for the drone to reach sexual maturity.
A queen will emerge on Day 16.
It has always been my understanding that a virgin queen should mate within the first week of emergence.  Waiting longer will result in a queen that is of poor quality or doesn't produce at all.
I think I would try to buy a mated and laying queen.

[Jen]

Nice chart there Baker  I thought it was at least no later than two weeks like Neil said, even one week sounds reasonable to me. It's been awhile since I've studies up on queens. So let's see... the queen is born with a little of her own pheromone, then when she gets mated her scent increases triple fold or more. So, if she doesn't get mated in a timely manner then after two weeks the queen pretty much smells like the rest of the bees, she can prob hang out with the rest of the colony, or they would do her in...But Why? there are no eggs left to make new queens.

I'll see what I can do to find a queen this time of year 

[tecumseh]

time I GUESS depends somewhat on nutrition and of course weather < ie cold slower and warm and sunny sooner < these two variable are somewhat related.

We now think via studies we have done at the lab that it likely takes longer than two weeks for a drone to reach full sexual maturity. rather than 2 weeks (which is what the books typically say) we now think it takes 16 days plus for the drone to gain full sexual maturity. All of biology conforms to a bell curve so no one number is exactly correct.

[Jen]

Interesting tec, so for me then, I'll estimate 2 weeks give or take a little 

[tecumseh]

yea Jen in such question you have to add + or - to the estimation.  sometimes it will happen sooner than you think and sometimes later...

if you read the books on queen rearing they quite often toss out a 'given' number of days and this kind of literally thinking can get you into trouble.. for example 10 days post graft you pull and install cells < works most of the time but when it does not (and a virgin queens emerges early) it leads to disaster... the commercial folks I know either use incubators or install cells on day 9.