Kirsten Traynor wrote:
>They used two drone brood frames in each hive. These were
>removed on a 30 day cycle and replaced with a second set of two drone
>frames. For the next 30 days the first two frames sat in a freezer.

I thought it might be worth noting that there are more efficient rotations
for drone brood trapping, if done on a larger scale.  I used continual
cycling drone brood trapping in over fifty hives this year, and I didn't
have freezer space for fifty plus drone frames at all times.  I also didn't
want to have to remove all fifty plus drone frames in a single day's time,
so I would remove frames from about eight hives every three days or so.
That way I only had about eight frames in the freezer at any given time,
and I only needed to have about eight extra frames instead of two frames
for every hive.

With careful planning I found the workload very manageable.  I was able to
make much of the work coincide with my regular work of swarm prevention,
making splits, requeening, etc., and the surplus visits had the added
benefit of an easy opportunity for a quick inspection to monitor queenright-
ness, swarm pressure, need for extra supers, and so on.  I can see
potential in drone brood trapping for a lot more sideliners, in addition to
hobbyists, especially for those who are already putting the time into
getting "the most" out of each hive.

As for what to do with the drone brood, I feed it to my chickens.  Where
else can I get a locally-raised, non-GMO protein source?  But for most
beekeepers feeding the thawed brood back to the bees sounds like the best
bet.

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