John F. Edwards Biological Lab. Technician
"Feral Bee Tracker and AHB Identifier" wrote:
>Steve Taber mentioned back in the 1970s that large colonies in Hawaii had
>maybe thirty percent drones, and had no problem making tons of honey - he
>was always an advocate of letting the bees build in patches of free-style
>comb for drones.

        The question of whether to limit the amount of drone comb, in
attempt to limit the fraction of drones in the hive, has arisen in New
Zealand's varroa emergency.
        I see no basis for preferring any arrangement above what the bees
themselves arrange.  What theory could justify such an intervention?
        It may seem far-fetched to those who wish to evade the political
realities of the day, but we can expect truculent male-haters of our
species to project that antagonism onto the innocent bee species.  The
stated theoretical basis is that varroa breed mainly in drone brood and
therefore if we artificially restrict the amount of drone brood to some
arbitrary limit we will limit the varroa population.  Is this a
well-founded hypothesis?

R

-
Robt Mann
consultant ecologist
P O Box 28878   Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand
                (9) 524 2949