In a message dated 07/10/2009 15:35:32 GMT Daylight Time, [log in to unmask] writes: Next year, you have a number of cheap IPM options. Personally, I am a fan of drone brood culling. A few special frames per hive and some freezer space are all it takes. (As a hobbyist, my time is essentially free - I'd be in the hives anyway.) Sugar dusting and vinegar sprays have their proponents. Or you could gradually switch over to more resistent bees. The archives are full of IPM suggestions, most very reasonable. If you want your drones to mate with queens don't cull them! There have been lots of queen mating problems reported recently and it has been suggested that over-enthusiastic drone culling may be among the causes. A favourite method of mine is (at swarming time) to make an artificial swarm with the queen being placed on the old site with a frame of unsealed brood. A majority of the mites on the adult bees will go into that comb before the cells are sealed. You remove and destroy it when it has been sealed. The part of the colony with all the rest of the brood will rear a new queen (you can use the opportunity to do all the other things that can be done at this time eg inserting a queen cell from selected stock). When she is mated and has started to lay, all the other brood should have emerged before the new queen's is ready for sealing. Again remove and destroy the first sealed brood. You can then re-unite the colonies or maybe use the Pagden method to build a strong colony in advance of a honey flow. There are many options. Total cost: 2 frames of brood. Benefits: Varroa dealt with for a season, no chemicals in the hive, re-queening, comb renewal, a strong colony for the honey flow. Chris *********************************************** 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 Access BEE-L directly at: http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A0=BEE-L