David, How are you ? In message <[log in to unmask]>, David Eyre <[log in to unmask]> writes > OLd Drone wrote concerening Drone foundation. >It works great, but if you do not have >>excluders you could end up rearing a lot more drones in the spring and >>today this would translate to a lot more Varroa Mites as they are said >>to prefer drone brood over worker. > > Is there any proof to the validity of Andys statement? The drone preference has been demonstrated by many; Fuchs (1990) Apidologie 21(3): 193-199 for one. The consensus is it is 8 - 10 times more infested than worker brood. The distribution of mites in various brood cells is discussed in (for example) Wiegting & Ferenz's paper (1991) ABJ 131(2): 117-118. Done is attractive to mites for about 45 hours before it is capped (worker 15 hours) and as its capped for two days longer more daughter mites have time to reach sexual maturity and mate in drone brood. Once the bee emerges the inmature females and males die and only mature females live on the adult bee. The actual number of these emerging from the brood cells varies, depending on all sorts of things. On average the number from worker is 1 to 1.7 and from drone 2 or 3. See Schulz (Apidologie 1984); Infantidis (Journal of Apicultural Research 1984) and Fuch & Langenbach (Apidologie 1989) More recent research reported in the UK journal Beecraft from Rothamstead (can't remember who did it !) put the proportions at about 3:5 (worker to drone) There is no doubt that drone rearing can also be varroa rearing. Pet subject. Shall look some more ? -- Dave Black Blacks Bee Gardens, Guildford, GU1 4RN. UK.