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Date: | Sat, 17 Nov 2007 17:44:11 EST |
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Eric,
Similar principles are applied in a method advocated in the UK - thus: make
an artificial swarm and put the queen on a frame of open brood on the old
site, completing the box with foundation. If you add the QE and super of drawn
comb you might get some extra honey if there's a flow as the bees will have
nowhere but the super to put it. The flying bees, complete with phoretic
mites, rejoin the queen. During the next few days the mites enter the open
cells. You remove and destroy that comb when the cells are sealed.
The parent colony raises/ is given a queen who should take some time to mate
and come into lay. During this time the old queen's brood hatches, complete
with mites who have nowhere to go for a while. When the new queen starts to
lay, the mites will be keen to enter the new brood as soon as it is at the
optimum stage for them. The beekeeper waits until the first comb is sealed and
removes and destroys it.
The colonies can then be run on separately or re-united if that would be
more advantageous. You will have got rid of a high proportion of the mites at a
cost of 2 frames of brood; drawn new brood combs; re-queened; obtained the
extra bees from running 2 queens for a while, and possibly gained an extra
super of honey while the foundation in the brood box was being drawn.
Chris
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