How long does a drone bee mate with a queen bee?

Answer 1

A virgin queen will leave the hive on a mating flight about a week after she emerges from the brood cell. She will emit a mating pheromone which will attract drones from quite an area around. The drones will persue the queen and eventually mating will take place.

Copulation with a single drone only takes a matter of a few seconds. The queen will usually mate with between ten and 20 drones, until her spermatheca (the sac in which she stores the sperm) is full.

The queen will then return to the hive and will not leave it again except, perhaps, with a swarm. The stock of sperm in her spermatheca will last her for her entire productive life -- two to five years.

Answer 2

Three months is how long a drone bee tends to live.

Specifically, the insect in question (Apis spp) is the male bee. He may be recognized by eyes about twice the size of queen or worker bees. He must be able to mate with the queen bee during flight. He will die soon after since mating results in the loss of the drone bee's abdominal tissue and reproductive parts.

Answer 3

The queen lays an unfertilized egg into a slightly larger brood cell than that for workers. After three days the egg hatches into a larva which is fed nectar and pollen mixed with a little honey (called bee bread) by the nurse bees. During the next seven days the larva grows and moults four times. The workers then cap the cell with wax, and four days later the larva pupates. The pupal stage lasts ten days, at the end of which the adult drone will break through the wax cap and emerge from the cell. Within the hive the drone does no work. It doesn't even feed itself, it is fed by the worker bees.

Until it is about 12 days old the drone is confined to the hive except for cleansing and orientation flights on fine days. By the time it is two weeks old the drone is sexually mature. On warm afternoons the drones fly out and congregate in groups. Should a virgin queen fly she will emit pheromones which attract the drones to her from quite a wide area. Any drone that succeeds in mating with a queen will die afterwards. Drones that do not mate can live for about four months. Drones have no purpose in the hive. Their sole function is to mate with virgin queens. Any drones still alive in the autumn have no prospect of mating with a queen and are no longer required by the colony. They are thrown out of the hive by the workers, and die. New drones will be produced in the following spring.