>
> >Looking at Seely's paper I see that he used four (4) in the brood chambers
> and then in one lot had drone comb above the excluder as well.


 In the US, unlike in Australia, most beeks use a double deep brood chamber,
and *then* maybe an excluder under the honey supers.

>I would have thought that reducing the varroa population, even by a small
amount, would decrease the numbers thus reducing the varroa population at a
later stage.

That would make perfect sense!  Unfortunately, beekeeping reality doesn't
necessarily follow perfect sense.  In reality, the mites make up for the
loss of the initial population with increased reproduction, apparently due
to decreased competition.

That's why I made the point that there is likely an optimum "time" (mite
level?) to perform drone brood removal.

Glad to see that some of you Aussies are paying attention, Trevor!  :-)

Randy Oliver

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