> late-season immigration is an entirely different subject than the benefit of a brood break.

Not according to Mel's lights. For him, he breaks the breeding cycle and never worries about mites. Lucky him. 


I have been using mels techniques for 6-7 years,  not the whole program as I can't sell that many bees,  but the OTS system  which is super simple and almost 100%.

His concept on splitting will/ does work by keeping you ahead of the mites.   I don't see late season immigration as an issue,  and still question the math.  For my scale of hives and my region its not, and I don't suspect every been an issue.   Many fall checks will show zero mites  right next to hives with high numbers.  While it could be simply that my hive numbers dwarf the neighbors and it’s a small issue,  I still fail to see how the math ever works without  large numbers of hives collapsing in the area in that time period,  something we never see here.

Charles

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