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Date: | Fri, 22 Jan 2021 06:48:50 -0700 |
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One year I tried queen confinement in mid-summer and my conclusion was
that, where I live, this idea was as good a method as any to increase my
work and expense, reduce the honey crop, stress the bees, kill some queens,
and reduce wintering success all in one go.
It may also have slowed varroa increase, seeing as varroa requires brood
for reproduction but any advantage gained by varroa reduction was offset by
the trouble and collateral damage. There are far easier and less damaging
ways to control varroa.
Beekeepers have all sorts of notions and often the logic seems sound, and
the logic usually is, but logic is only as good as the quality and
completeness of the inputs and the predictability of the environment. All
around us we are seeing how badly confidence in flawed models can lead us
astray when we rely on or are distracted by ideas rather than acting on the
obvious phenomena before us.
As Yogi is said to have pointed out, but we have to learn again and again
for ourselves "In theory there is no difference between theory and
practice. In practice, there is".
Where I live, the bees need all season to build up and balance populations
in advance of winter so such manipulations generally prove harmful, but
your goals and your location may be different from mine so YMMV.
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