>There is a substantial cost to the shook swarm method--the colony suffers
from a minimum 21-day brood break during spring buildup, plus needs to
build far more comb.  Guler found that the method (without syrup feeding to
the shook colony) resulted in far less honey production (1.5x as much in
the unshook hives).

In the UK we have moved from treating EFB with antibiotics to the use of the shook swarm technique.  Following that move, inspectors from the National Bee Unit were promoting the use of the shook swarm to replace old combs in hives that were not infected with EFB, claiming that the rejuvenated colonies would go on to produce a higher crop in that year.  Whether this policy came from the top I do not know, but I personally was not convinced.

I only replace comb that is physically defective and must have some now that is over 30 years old - and the bees are still doing very well on it, giving crops well above the UK average.

I have never used 'hard' chemicals for varroa treatment of course; perhaps if I had then things might be different.

Best wishes

Peter 
52°14'44.44"N, 1°50'35"W

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html