Being a chicken supporter in this, if you've seen a comb after it has been totally destroyed by chickens there can be no doubt the mites are destroyed with it. When using wax foundation there is nothing left but the frame. Nothing. If, by chance, one escapes, it is 40 yards from a beehive and is mashed several times into the mud and dirt in the pen. If one uses plastic drone foundation...I did both for a while but use no wax foundation now at all... the comb is essentially clean when they are done. There will be burr comb perhaps, a bit in corners, but all the cells, brood, mites, wax, pollen...whatever was there is cleanly swept away and consumed. Chickens are omnivores and will simply eat a wax comb, comb with honey, pollen or brood. They are not fussy, and they are always hungry.

I learned this from Kim Fondrk, once from OSU, now at Davis, who was working with Rob Page. I was sitting in his backyard watching his chickens waiting for him to come home from work. He pulled into the driveway...a 6' wooden fence was at the end of his driveway and served as one side of his chicken pen on the other side. I didn't hear him pull in, but the chickens did and 24 birds nearly climbed over the fence to get at the dozen or so combs he brought home each day. 



Kim Flottum

Editor, Bee Culture Magazine





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