So with frame caging the colony sacrifices 3x frames of brood whereas with queen caging it's just the same amount of adult bees that are sacrificed (by being excessively parasitized). But that doesn't matter because it's the end of the season?!
Reading many other threads in the forum it gives an impression of many non critical/logical thinking members who pick up smatterings of ideas, subconsciously select small bits that they incorporate into their own methods with results ranging from good through neutral to downright disastrous. I'm with you on this Dani.
Thanks useful to see. I will try the caging the Q in a colony this year & will post how I got on afterwards!
He said it depends on your local conditions ie when your flows are. Think best thing is to just try it on one colony & see how it works
Because he believes it's best to reduce the amount of chemicals used. An option to doing a one time OA vapour to kill the phoretic mites at the end of the process is to add a comb of open brood at the end just as you release the queen. Then sacrifice that one comb at the end.
No bees are sacrificed as the queen is caged, she goes off lay for 21 days. Nurse bees live longer as they are not feeding brood, so don't progress to foragers and like 'winter' bees are in good condition with plump hypopharyngeal glands to feed new brood, when the queen is released. To understand furtherwatch this video from the National Honey Show, it explains it all
He did cover that, by beginning Aug the drone brood is reducing significantly. You can either extend the timings or as you say target drone brood with a drone comb / super with drone comb beneath. Here's a pdf explaining further & gives options for drone brood (from the company supplying the queen cages).
If you go for the option to add a frame of open brood from another colony at the end, avoiding any use of chemicals, you'd have to manage the state of the donor frame to avoid emerging brood. ?
Yes you'd need a frame freshly laid, I'd probably put a empty old drawn sterilised comb into a 'donor hive' a few days before to make sure of this
Have a look at the video on my post 1, your can buy a specific queen tool so you don't need to handle her. You can either buy direct from the Italian company (but min order for cages is 6 plus cE12 postage) or you can buy just one cage (at a higher) price via Donegal bees
Takes 30mins to do with a queen cage. Only need to go into the colony at the beginning and end of the 21 days, minimal intervention. He recommended timing it with late summer flows not in May.
Eh?!
The nurse bees do live longer when not taking care of brood. But with the caging method, these same nurse bees are being excessively parasitized by varroa with nowhere else to go.
This worried me. When you release the queen the youngest 'nurse' bees would be getting 'old'. ? They do pick up again so something must be happening.
I'm not disputing the fact that they don't age as quickly, but the statement that they don't progress to foragers I find pretty far fetched, what do they do if there's no brood? sit around knitting or playing cribbage until the queen starts laying again?
Our posts crossed. I'd just edited mine to clarify the longevity when I saw your reply
It's the same as a natural brood break some colonies go through when there's a flow on. You're right the varroa will move out of brood as it emerges onto phoretic bees & some will be groomed. Then treat once with oxalic sublimation at the end of the 21 days capture remaining phoretic mites via a comb with open brood at the end.
