In the intro to this paper (https://academic.oup.com/aesa/advance-article/doi/10.1093/aesa/saaa041/5998622), titled "Elevated Mating Frequency in Honey Bee Queens Exposed to the Miticide Amitraz During Development", the authors state in the intro that higher mating frequency and higher spermatozoa viability are expected of _healthy_ queens unimpacted by a chemical. They go on to show that sperm viability is not significantly different, and that the calculated mating frequency is higher (control is 12, fluvalinate etc is 16, amitraz is 14, for OBSERVED, whatever that means) for the queens exposed to these miticides. Note that other studies have indicated healthy queens go for more like 30+ partners (Honey Bee Colonies Headed by Hyperpolyandrous Queens Have Improved Brood Rearing Efficiency and Lower Infestation Rates of Parasitic Varroa Mites, Delaplane et al, 2015). So of course the authors concluded there was something wrong with the AMITRAZ queens, that they would find so many more drones. Right? 14 "observed" so much higher than the fluvalinate exposed queen, at 16... oh, wait... Note that a previous paper also found higher quality queens from miticide exposed wax. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303827111_In-Hive_Miticides_and_their_Effect_on_Queen_Supersedure_and_Colony_Growth_in_the_Honey_Bee_Apis_mellifera), titled " In-Hive Miticides and their Effect on Queen Supersedure and Colony Growth in the Honey Bee (Apis mellifera)", by Rangel and Tarpy. My take on these 2 studies' harmonious conclusions is that these hives may have had bees impacted by varroa mites, which was alleviated by the miticide in the wax. I did not see a report on what the mite levels were in this most recent study for the colonies rearing the queens, in fact, just the mention that the mating nucs had not been treated for mites for the past 2 years, in methods section. This information does not make me less likely to use Amitraz in a nuc for queen rearing.

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