Hey guys,
I came across this project called Mitenot: http://www.eltopia.com/mitenot/ Thought you might find it of interest. Perhaps people with more experience could tell more what they think about this techy method and how bees would react to these artificial temperature spikes?
Cheers,
Arnaud
Actually if you search on shcolar.google.com you can find quite a few studies on the topic of the effects of temperature changes on developing brood. It changes the way the respond to things for the rest of their life. But then I’m sure those changes happen naturally anyway from time to time.
I read the article on the page. It stated that only one frame was needed per beehive. If most hives have multiple brood frames them how is this one frame going to eradicate the mite problem? Am I missing something?
If the frame in question has drone cell foundation, this could work very well. One IPM method is to place a frame of drone comb into the hive - and as the comb is filled the mites will be drawn strongly to the drone comb. If the mites then are sterilized it will massively cripple their numbers.
I’m not advocating this tool (I have no idea if it has other drawbacks) but a single frame could, theoretically, work.