The Honey Bee Health Coalition is saying recent studies show misting packages of bees before installing with an oxalic acid and sugar solution have been proven highly effective in controlling the mite population. Thoughts on this? Here is their guide to controlling the Varroa Mite.
None of the beekeeping resources I trust and have adopted recommend spraying a package with sugar water, so I personally would not do it.
This is a great site. Part 3 is all you need. The previous two parts were out dated and/or were combined into Part 3.
http://scientificbeekeeping.com/the-learning-curve-part-3-the-natural-miticides/
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Queen Trapping - http://www.biobees.com/library/general_beekeeping/queen_raising_breeding/broodtrapcage.pdf
Our apiary tried this - not a great success
The Fully Drawn Comb Frame is put into a cage where the Queen can lay, the workers can feed her, but she can only lay on the caged frame - the idea being the new brood will attract the varroa when the are just ready to be caped and all the varroa eventually get trapped on that frame. which is later destroyed.
Problem being is all the brood is sacrificed - not very efficient - Would be better if it were Drone Comb but still inefficient
A frame of drone costs them the same as a frame of workers so throwing this out is the same loss of resources. When you remove drone, they just have to make more drones and that still costs them the same as a frame of workers. Throwing out infested drone is just selecting for Varroa that prefer workers… or selecting against the Varroa that prefer drones… I want Varroa that prefer drones.
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@Michael_Bush Hi Michael as a newbee I am still deciding on what prevention and treatments I could possibly use for Varroa. What is your method or recommendation please. I had considered cutting out Drone cone. But now not so sure.
I had considered it too. But decided against it.
Thanks for the Links Michael I will have a good read.