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I feel "seen" :( With regard to the David Evans article, he was kind enough to reply to my email request for more clarification. Since I didn't ask permission, I will not quote him directly. However, the upshot was that he absolutely doesn't like drone-culling through the season, suspects...

The suggestion was to use FA instead of the early-season drone culling advocated in the David Evans article. I think it's a bad one though.

Points for use of the word.

Sure, but it's early season that is being mooted. And possible lingering effects rather than simply affecting the brood that were present at the time? (Thinking of comb absorbing toxins, that kind of thing) Just throwing ideas around here.

I have seen this said before. I don't doubt it, but upset how?

Isn't that the same regime as drone-culling then? Admittedly you keep the drones, but if culling them doesn't help appreciably with varroa then treating only capped drones should theoretically provide the same result or worse, no? Edit: I guess if this particular regimen of drone culling works...

I've just emailed him to ask. Can't hurt. I was just thinking that a formic-acid treatment at that time would surely have a similar if-not better effect? But then again, it seems like drones are pretty delicate and can be made sterile by some chemical treatments. Unsure if FA is one of them...

I have obviously failed with my search terms, because I doubt that there aren't already threads about it somewhere here. Please feel free to link any I have missed, but I have looked. So, my question isn't hugely specific but I have picked-up the occasional opinion on other threads that some...

As Erichalfbee says, I am believer in exploration for exploration’s sake. If the knowledge is there to be had, I want it, and don’t necessarily expect it to be something useful. I am big supporter of things like space exploration where many people fail to see the practical value, while enjoying...

Precisely. I guess this has now become "BaconWizard's Nutty Ideas Thread" but that's one of them. If it works at-all, I think it would still require giving them plenty of space for new comb and incoming stores which I THINK Magor is advocating-for anyhow, without the ocimene. I'll let him...

Ok, so are you saying that you would ideally want to move young nurse bees up to middle-aged bees which produce wax, and then give them plenty of room to build new comb so that they are employed away from the brood-nest, thus alleviating one of the triggers for swarming? If so, I imagine...

I think I follow most of it. I still need to read about the function of ethyl oleate properly. On a different thread I asked someone if they had tried using Ocimene to change swarming behaviour, and what you have posted is exactly why I asked: Signal that there is plenty of young brood rather...

I had no clue. Pargyle was saying I think that they are on pretty shaky ground with that premise though. Do you agree with that? But then again, a massive operation is going to want/need to turn everything into a production line, they won't be interested in treating each colony according to...

Cool, I am glad it is well regarded. It had all the hallmarks of being respectable. Regarding middle-age bees and wax production, something in Snelgrove (admittedly very old now) which I've just read also has made me wonder about that. So I would be delighted to hear your theory. We are kind of...

It's extremely simple: I am asking if it works. Not whether it is the best option or anything else. People seem to be determined to tell me I shouldn't want to know for various reasons including lack of practical application so far as they can imagine. Well I DO want to know. Sorry!

Meh, if everything else is good, space etc, then surely both are gonna be regulated by the balance of pheromones, in particular brood, juvenile and Queen. What pheromones are prevalent when and how they all work is new to me and I am still getting my head around it so I am not confident in my...

Yeah, even if they seem to have plenty of space overall, I believe the brood box can become overcrowded with young nurse bees for the amount of brood. There may be room where they could go, but they don’t. I think that is a pheromone thing: the queen’s various substances not getting spread far...

“Only the Sith deal in absolutes” Wait, sorry, wrong forum! Seriously though, I would be surprised if there weren’t some reason why young queens swarm a bit less: if they are considerably more pheromone-tastic than even a 2yr old for example. But we know there would be a brood break, she may...

Yeah I have no doubt that there are plenty of such myths and I will likely fall foul of a few on my journey. The one thing that I do keep in mind including with questions like the one I posed here, is that it's rarely a yes/no thing but more often a game of averages and even then, dependent on...

I was under the impression that it is not the queen who "decides" to swarm anyhow, but the colony at-large who respond to various conditions including strength and distribution of queen pheromones (mandibular and tarsal) and brood (Juvenile ie Ocimene, vs the older brood blend) and will then...