At 06:28 PM 10/31/05 -0800, you wrote:
>My original question was posed to find out if a device could be built and
installed in the hive itself to strip the varroa off of the bees.

My interest involves understanding the mite's host preference for the
phoretic period of their life, with an eye towards possibly exploiting it
as a means of thwarting the little buggers so my only question now is do
varroa prefer nurse bees and if so, why?

Oh, what the heck. At the risk of speculating without a basis in fact, my
interest stems from a discussion on another forum about caging the queen as
a means of maximizing honey production and the side effect that the break
in brood rearing seems to have on the mite population. Simply depriving the
mites of a brood cycle doesn't really explain the claimed effect on the
mites to my satisfaction. Is that all there is, or does forcing all the
nurse/house bees to become foragers for a while have something to do with it?

I'd also be interested in hearing other people's experiences with caging
the queen as a management technique and the effect it has on varroa.

George-

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