From: "ALDEN MARSHALL" there is no evidence that drones rearing reduces the
production of worker brood".

Assuming: (1) a queen will lay to her capacity in the spring build-up;  (2)
nurse bees will rear all the larvae for which they can secrete brood food ,
does it not follow inevitably that if the colony is encouraged to rear say
10% of brood as drones, production of workers must be reduced by 10%?   And
the forager force subsequently reduced by 10%?
Don't actually know myself if 10% is a good guess for the level of drone
production in spring needed to control varroa.
But yes, such cost to the honey crop may well be worth it - varroa have to
be controlled until/unless the bees themselves can keep numbers to tolerable
levels.
Any comments?

Robin Dartington

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