> Removing drone brood was always too labor intensive for me but I am trying
> to find frames of deep Dadant drawn drone comb...

I don't recommend the drone removal method for number of reasons, but a
simple way to do drone removal is to place one or two drawn medium depth
worker combs into a standard brood chamber in drone season.

In a strong colony, the bees invariably build very neat drone comb
extensions on the bottom bar of such frames and fill them 100% with drone
brood.  Usually, they will not attach them on bottom and sides, so the frame
will pull right out without problems, just like any other frame.

It is then a very quick and simple matter to slice off the drone comb and
replace the frame to repeat the process.  If one or two are left in over
winter, little harm will be done.  In weaker colonies, like nucs, worker
brood might be their choice, so this trick cannot be counted on to work as
well in such hives.

I think I should mention, however, that Seeley showed, and we all know, that
placing full drone combs into the middle of a brood chamber, even in
off-centre locations, will diminish crops significantly.  We discussed
Seeley's results here previously and there should be something in the
archives.

The abstarct of the original Seeley paper is at
http://www.edpsciences.org/articles/apido/abs/2002/01/Seeley/Seeley.html
(that used to be the URL of the entire paper, I thought) and I discuss it a
bit further at http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/articles/fdnvsdrawn.htm
(3/4 of the way down).

allen
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/

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