Replacing Brood Frames:
  A practice recommended by Brother Adam, seconded by Roger Morse.
Ballpark suggestion is every 5 years.  Practical suggestion is to
replace a few per hive as they become especially old and blackened,
cycling through the frames in your hives as time and budget allows.
This was admittedly (by both of the names dropped above) a practice
more achievable by the hobbiest than the commercial beekeeper.
Rational was that  as the brood combs age, pathogens MAY collect and
culling the aged frames removes these pathogens from your hive.  In
a "natural setting", the bees would simply abandon the old combs as
they either move up in their nesting cavity or swarm to another
location.  Wax moths would then clean up the old combs.  Hence, in a
"natural setting", the wax moths serve a beneficial role!  Perhaps
there's a grand scheme to nature?
 
Labels:
  I'll second the recommendation for RM Farms in Dearborn, MI.  RM
advertises regularly in _ABJ_ and _Bee-Culture_, no bull!  They have a
wide variety of stock from which to choose on which RM will do your
"customized" printing.  For $1.50 US (if I recall correctly), RM will
send you samples of their work.  Only complaint is that they can get
quite backed up at busy times of the year (like NOW!).  As always, order
early to get what you want when you want it.
 
Mavrik:
  I'm amazed that someone so respect in BEE-L would put his name to a
query about using Mavrik!  Yes, it's out there, yes, it's cheap, no,
it's not approved, yes, it can lead to disastrous results: fluvalinate
resistance, contaminated honey, bad public publicity for honey as a pure
product, decreased honey sales.  Avoid it's use, boycott beekeepers who
admit to using it, whether it's used hives (no matter how good the price
seems) or honey from said outfit.  And as far as Bed and Breakfast
owners beating up on Kiwi posters, take that noise to the streets and
keep it off BEE_L!!!!
 
Frame Grips:
  Waste of money, fingers are the best tool goin'.  I bought a frame
grip in my first year, used them once or twice, threw 'em away.  The
gripper was too fat to fit between frames (in a 10 frame Langstroth
hive), I had to remove the first frame by hand to be able to use the
gripper on the remaining 9 frames, and had to pry the frame away from
its neighbor to be able to use the gripper.  A lot of picking up the
hive tool, put it down, pick up the gripper, put it down, pick up the
hive tool, ....  Use the hive tool, skip the grip.
 
Aaron Morris - Killing freeze last night.  '96 season is over.
               Here's to '97!  Happy New Year!