Bill Mares asked:

> I did a search of the BEE-L archives on drone trapping and got more confused
> as I read. Can anyone offer advice on this anti-varroa technique in (to use
> the words of the old aspirin commercial)"simple declarative sentences?"

Sure... looks like I am stuck here at O'Hare until they find some duct tape
to re-attach the left wing to the plane.  (Fair warning - the Delta Crown Room
stocks Glenfiddich, so I'm not sure how clear my thinking is after 4 single-malts...)

1)  Get some "drone-sized foundation".  Many bee suppliers
     sell it.

2)  Make up frames in the same size as your brood chamber
     to hold the drone foundation.  Some might want to have
     two drone frames per hive (see below for why).

  2a)  You will have to wire the foundation into the frame,
         as drone foundation comes as plain wax, no wires
         built in.  (Don't know how?  Ask an old beekeeper
         to show you.)

   2b)  Write "DRONE" in big fat black letters across the
          top bar with a permanent marker, so you can find
          it with ease, and mark an indicator of the hive to
          which the frame "belongs".

3)  Put it in your brood hive, but wait until a flow is on so
     that the bees will draw the foundation out.  Certainly
     do NOT do this in the early spring build-up period.

  3a)  Do not break up the existing brood area.  Replace
         a frame without eggs or brood. For best success,
         place it near frames with eggs.  Mark the frame you
         remove so you will know which hive it came from.

  3b)  Perhaps remove the foundation once it is drawn out,
        and save it for use in July and August (see below for
        rationale...)

  3c)  Or simply leave it in place if you feel that your varroa
         situation is dire.  (See "sticky board", "sugar roll",
         "ether roll", and "alcohol roll", in this group's archives)

4)  Once the frame is drawn out, wait a bit for the queen to lay
     eggs in the drone foundation, and for those cells to be capped
     over.  You want to remove it before the FIRST drone eggs
     that were laid will hatch, so the frame will likely not be 100%
     capped-over when you remove it.

5)   Remove the frame.  Shake/brush off any bees.  Replace the
      frame with another drone frame, or a the regular brood frame
      you removed in (3) above, or leave an empty space, depending
      upon the bees' ability to draw comb.  Bag the drone frame in a
      double zip-lock bag.  (I use large anti-static zip-lock bags that
      computer companies use to protect circuit boards, but you can
      use whatever.  Plastic trash bags and twist-ties work OK, too.)

6)   Place the bagged frame in your freezer for at least 48 hours.
      (Consensus here?  How long to assure a "kill"?  Could 24
      hours be enough?)

6a)  Now you understand the need for the double-bagging.
      Think of it as marriage insurance.

7)   Once you have killed the drone brood, replace the frame
      in the SAME hive you took it from.

7a)  The bees will soon clean the frame, and prove that they are
       bees worthy of the name "hygienic".  If they don't do this
       quickly enough, seriously consider requeening.  (Again,
       consensus please?  What is a worst-case time for an
       average hive to clean up one side of a deep frame?
       A medium frame?)

8)   Lather, rise, repeat.

9)  There is no step 9.

Now, a few qualifications and clarifications to the above:

a)  Unless you are sure to check early enough to remove
     the drone frame before the cells hatch, you may be
     BREEDING additional varroa.  This is not something
     to forget about!!!!

b)  All this checking is invasive and disruptive to the hive, so one
     might not want to do this during your best nectar flows.

c)  Varroa population levels are said by many to be low in the spring,
     getting higher as summer goes on, so perhaps this is a good thing
     to do "between flows", or at least not during your "best" nectar
     event, which is most often spring.

d)  This approach reduces the worker brood area by 1/nth, where "n" is
     the number of frames in the brood area.  Clearly, people who use
     multiple mediums ("Illinois") as brood chambers are at an advantage
     here, since they are reducing total worker brood area by 1/30th in
     a 3-medium brood stack, rather than 1/20th in a dual "deep" stack,
     or 1/10th in a single deep hive body.

e)  Why all the frame marking?  Well, it would not be much help if you
     did not keep track of frames, and spread a case of foulbrood in your
     attempt to control varroa, would it?   Permanent magic marker is on
     my first line of defense against foulbrood, right up there with a small
     squeeze bottle of alcohol to clean the hive tool between hives.

f)  How does it work?  Well, the varroa are in the sealed cells with some
    number of drone brood.  The assumption is that there will be more
    varroa that crawl into drone brood cells than worker brood cells.
    When you freeze the drone brood, you kill both the drone brood and
    the varroa, taking out a significant number of the next generation of
    varroa.

        jim

        Farmaggedon