Larry, the method that you suggest would reduce the mite population in the
bottom box, but there would technically be little break in the brood cycle,
since mites would continue to enter brood in the upper box for at least 9
days. By that time, there would be susceptible brood in the bottom box.
Of course, in the bottom box there would only be the phoretic mites that
were on the adult bees, but they would immediately parasitize that brood.
Meanwhile, in the upper box, the full mite population would be phoretic
after 21 days, and the new queen would begin laying about four days later.
Mites could reenter brood in another 8 days. So overall, I'm not sure
that there would be a great deal of lost mite reproduction.
However, if you treated the two boxes at appropriate times with multiple
sugar dustings, Hopguard, or oxalic acid, you could eliminate nearly all
the mites.
What I envisioned was using a Snellgrove board with a single layer of
screen, so that the bees could pass queen pheromone, but not mites. Insert
the board without looking for the queen. After eight days, put the box
with eggs in the bottom position, with another box on top, then the
Snellgrove board, and then the queenless box. The queenless box at this
point could no longer rear a queen. Wait until 21 days has passed from Day
0.
Then split the hive and find the queen, put the queenless, broodless box on
the bottom, dribble it with oxalic acid (or Hopguard) and add the queen.
All mites would be phoretic, and most would be killed by the treatment,
including those on returning foragers.
Put the boxes with brood above, and again, there should be enough queen
pheromone transfer to inhibit queenrearing (or let them raise a queen if
you wish. In either case, in 21 days, you could treat the top boxes.
After a few days, pull the Snellgrove board for a nearly mite free colony.
This is total theory, plus it's late and I may not be thinking clearly. If
someone wants to try it out, please let me know if it works!
--
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com
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