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Date: | Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:03:12 -0500 |
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> ... issues to consider when timing the interruption of the
> brood cycle for the purpose of reducing the Varroa population?
> Specifically, I want to time this so there is minimal impact
> to honey production.
I don't know of any book that details this apporoach, but
assuming that you know the timing of your spring blooms,
you can feed in advance of blooms to build up a substantial
population, and then cage the queens just before the bloom
with push-in queen cages.
This would not hurt honey production at all. It would
increase the harvestable crop. Caging the queen frees
up bees that would be otherwise feeding brood for nectar
processing work. A secondary idea is that one is not
raising bees that will only be extra mouths to feed, as
they will live their lives during the post-bloom
dearth period. This tactic works well in VA as a scheme
to increase comb honey crops, as VA has a strong and short
early flow, and then a delay before the clovers and
sourwood blooms.
The impact on varroa would be that one can halt the
increase in varroa population for the period that
the queen is caged, but some or all of the adult varroa
will survive the broodless period.
Timing is crucial, as one does not want to keep the
queens caged too long.
But this is not going to do anything more than stall
the varroa for a short period. It is not going to
decrease one's varroa population. The broodless
period would make Oxalic or powdered sugar dusting
much more effective.
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