One of the methods of doing this is to use a small frame in the honey super. The bees lay worker brood in the frame and underneath, they build their own comb and make larger cells. Drones will be raised in these. Here you can see how this works--worker brood on the top, drone brood on the bottom: The drone brood is then cut off, frozen and then given to the birds to eat. Look at this final picture to see some varroa mites walking in the cells. This is one of the tricks we use to keep the varroa populations down in our hives here. I was trying to explain this to Carolyn earlier, but I could not be clear enough, I fear. Foto images ought to help. Perhaps others will find this interesting as well. The varroa mite is a big problem here and can devastate our colonies.
I was wondering if you had a special frame for drone brood that was removable and when you froze then replaced it the bees cleaned it out and eliminated most of the varroa instead of using an insecticide. I was guessing that if you had one available you hadn't used one or bought one. Maybe we are just more gullible to be marketed to in this manner of " we need one of everything in order to be happy and survive" instead of just being ruthless and removing the comb and destroying it. Haven't invested in one nor seen one used. What I would really like is to have a brood box with a latch and hinges I could swing open and remove the frames starting at one side instead of squeezing the frames together to get the first one out.
EILEEN-- I hope that he can get a handle on his varroa prob. there are several options. He may well know this technique. It is but one technique that I use to try and control varroa in my colonies. CAROLYN-- This is just one frame sort that I use for urging the bees to draw drone comb. There is also a special type of frame that has three compartments in which you cut out one partition per hive opening. I am due to look in that New "Renson" hive in a day or two ans will try and remember to take a pic of it for you.
