A single drone visits multiple congregation areas during his lifetime, often taking multiple trips per afternoon. A drone’s mating flight averages 20–25 minutes, before he must return to the colony to refuel with honey. While at the site, the drones fly around passively, waiting for the arrival of a virgin. When the virgin queen arrives to the congregation area, the drones locate her by visual and olfactory cues. At this point, it is a race to mate with the virgin queen, to be genetically represented in the newly founded colony. The swarming drones, as they actively follow the queen, reportedly resemble a “drone comet”, dissolving and reforming as the drones chase the virgin queen. Drones greatly outnumber the quantity of virgin queens produced per season, so even with multiple mating by the queen, very few drones mate successfully (estimated at less than one in 1000). If needed, a virgin queen can embark on multiple ‘nuptial flights’, to be sure to receive enough semen from enough drones.