>How else could you explain a brood break helping with mites???

It also sounded plausible to me, which is why I checked nucs started with
queen cells to confirm.  Was disappointed that I didn't observe mites
piling into the first capped cells.  Has anyone else on the List taken time
to check?

A brood break alone exposes mites to more grooming, as well as completely
stops all mite reproduction during the break.  The mite population only
increases at the rate of roughly 1.12 per week in my bees during active
broodrearing, which implies a weekly mortality rate in the same ballpark
(much higher than the fractional percents in the 1990's literature). So a
2-week break could result in a substantial decrease.  I'm just guessing
here--no hard data.
-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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