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Thread: "What can go wrong now?"

  1. #11
    Senior Member
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    Hi
    though it pains me to do it I destroy the majority of my drone brood as do the majority of the beekeepers I know.
    What they build in the free space under the frames in the lower brood magazine they can keep the rest belongs to the birds as feed. My concession is that my pure bred queen can lay as many frames of drone brood as she likes, I don't remove that.
    My method seems to work for me (drone removal, nuc building, 7*formic acid 60% & 1*oxalic)- in the last 3 years I have not lost a single colony in my area the average loss rate is >20%.

  2. #12
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    I destroy all or most of the drone brood in colonies whose genetics I don't want in the mix and replace it with frames of drone brood from the colonies with better queens. The donor colonies immediately make more drone brood and this keeps everyone happy.
    It must help to keep varroa numbers down, as well as promoting better genetics.

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