varroa control by brood less period

[MuswellMetro]

At a bee keepers meeting this week, some of the bee keepers were talking about varroa control by imposing a late summer brood less period

it is something i have not heard of before, it was suggest a removal of brood intermediately after forage finishes in July but that is as far as it got in the discussion before i was called away

Does anyone have any details of this method or practice it them selves, how long do you make them brood less, effects of brood less at that time on hive size and winter brood

what would it be say from 15th july one capped cycle 15 days without brood, or two capped cycles 30 days

any veiws

 

[oliver90owner]

Weaken the colony at wasp time?

Might be better to remove the queen to a nuc for a period, with all open brood, then treat the queeless colony for varroa (OK, oxalic acid per eg) and then return the queen at some suitable point and treat the, by then, strong nuc after all brood ahas hatched (OK, oxalic acid per eg), then combine the whole lot again?

Might just as well do a good thymol treatment over a period of 4 weeks or so, as far as I can see. Unless you are only running the odd colony or two!

A lot of trouble and effort, but could avoid the 'putting off lay' of the queen as experienced by some thymol treatments.

I would not want my over-wintering queen treated with oxalic acid umpteen times, but if requeening before winter that may not be an issue.

The biggest downer for me would be destroying brood to get the desired effect and the use of those frames later - freezing the frames with eggs would be acceptable but making a lot of work for the bees by returning freeze-killed brood is another question.

Just my inital brainstorm on the issue for further discussion.

Regards, RAB

 

[Hivemaker.]

Most of my colonys do it themselves at the end of August early september,while at the heather,and only need one very short varroa treatment. Then they start brooding again when the ivy starts.

 

[wightbees]

I posted a freeze drone cell thread ,the USA use it .They have 2 frames of drone cells and take one out then put it into the freezer whilst the other frame is put straight back into the hive.