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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
James Fischer <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sat, 20 Dec 2008 16:25:14 -0500
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>> So, the long term impact of cutting out drone brood is
>> going to be a colony with more and more drone cells,
>> prompting more cutting, drifting in a slow spiral 
>> towards having a significant fraction of drone comb.

> But once that significant fraction is actually reached 
> they should be satisfied and not over-produce drone cells. 

Yeah, and what do you have at that point?  You have the
frame used for "varroa control by drone brood removal"
AND you have all the other drone cells spread hither and
yon about the brood nest.  For a "two-deeps" broodnest, 
one has one frame of 20 (5%) dedicated to drone brood 
comb, and another 1.1 to 2.2 frames of drone brood spread 
amongst the other frames to get to Dave Cushman's 16% to 27%.

So much for "varroa control", unless you start 
scrapping comb left and right.  

If we are to buy into such large percentages of drone
brood being "normal", maybe the problem is that one needs
multiple drone frames per brood chamber for a more
effective varroa-control scheme.  For the "two-deeps" 
hive, one needs 3, 4, or 5 frames of the drone brood 
frames?  That really sounds excessive! 

For those who use the green plastic Perico frames that
Larry Connor waves at us threateningly in lectures,
those who scrape off the drone comb, rather than
freeze the comb might see the same problem, as bees
just hate to draw out those frames.

I can report that the freezing approach tends to not
result in anywhere near the level of ad-hoc drone
cells, but I can also report that women are really
picky about finding even well-wrapped frames of 
drone comb in the deep freeze.  And no, you can't lie
to them that it is comb honey - they know when you 
pull supers 'cause you complain too much about how
hard you work when you pull supers.

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