I am surprised we have not had more discussion on the hypothesis that beekeepers are maintaining hive numbers by constant splitting. I don't know about the rest of you but when I have a 30% loss and need to split I find it is a real pain. Having to pump up survivor hives, clean and disinfect dead-outs, scrape and re-assemble woodenware, graft extra cells, and baby along nucs is a lot of work. My focus is on honey and if I split I almost always lose honey yields. If someone is making up 30% of their hives every year then they are dealing with 30% dead-outs on the back-end, with all that entails: constant checking for dead-outs to prevent hive beetle and wax moth slime and web-fests, plus the fact that if a hive dies it is robbed out by the good ones and the contagion is spread.. I drop all of my dead-outs in a freezer for 24 hours before sorting comb and putting it back on a strong hive, IF I catch them in time. The result is constant vigilance. No more 3 weeks away from the bees because of other business....., plus those wierd dead-outs with sealed brood left behind (PMS?) that look like AFB but don't rope or have obvious scale - I am always wondering what they really are and if I should even try to clean them up and re-use the combs. One beekeeper wrote in to say he cages queens to force a brood brood break. Is anyone else experimenting with a summer brood break? I wonder if it would be worth while to go through and just de-queen everything in the summer? Thoughts? Bill Lord Louisburg, NC *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at: http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm