Frame Spacing reduces Drones, Swarming & Varroa???

Instead of taking a Thread off topic, I decided to open a new Thread, but also about Frame Spacing.

On the below website I came across an interesting claim,
http://dave-cushman.net/bee/cast.html

Scroll down to the diagrams, where the claim that 12 or 13 Castellated Spacers with only 10mm space between them (and 6mm at the ends) reduces Drone brood.

If this is true, does it also not follow on that it could reduce Swarming (or at least help), and then as Varroa so much loves Drone brood, could it also mean that the reduction in Drone Brood helps to control Varroa?

Does anyone have hives with different frame spacings in which they have noticed one hive producing less Drones, etc. but yet each have similar in most other respects, ie: genes.

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If all that is true, why it is then in usage? And who is behind those "facts"?

I don't think drone broad leads to swarming, it's just an indication that the resources are available to make them.

Varroa my prefer drone board but it'll hop into work cells if it can't find drones.

Trying to maintain frame spacing with that precision seems a lot more work than using standard management techniques.

Some colonies like to have more drones than others but if you remove them all they will be replaced promptly as they are an insurance policy for the colony.

Not often I even think this of Daves work but I suspect this is a dead end.

PH

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Frame model change for drones!.... Odd

Swarming happens, what ever the hive is, if bees' swarming instinct is normal..

Black magic
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Give them a frame of drone foundation and a bit of extra space.

In all fairness to Dave Cushman, it's TooBee... that is speculating, postulating and hypothesising.
All Dave says is, "The 12's and 13's are used in mating nucs in an attempt to reduce the possibility of drone production."
I think the key words are, "attempt to reduce the possibility".

Swarm said:

Give them a frame of drone foundation and a bit of extra space.

Click to expand...

bingevader said:

In all fairness to Dave Cushman, it's TooBee... that is speculating, postulating and hypothesising.

Click to expand...

Yes - seems to have a worm in his head about narrower frame spacings. Time to stop reading american comics and read a real bee book

jenkinsbrynmair said:

Yes - seems to have a worm in his head about narrower frame spacings. Time to stop reading american comics and read a real bee book

Click to expand...

This chain is native thinking.... And not from Cushman pages
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jenkinsbrynmair said:

Yes - seems to have a worm in his head about narrower frame spacings. Time to stop reading american comics and read a real bee book

Click to expand...

How does one know what is a real bee book?
Having had a large bee library to go through I can say there is at least one topic where confusion, and opinion backed by poor research reigns.

Oh, considerably more than one.

Snelgrove anyone? (Lights smoker and strolls off)

PH

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There are a rumor on beekeeping, that swarming depends on drone rearing start Boath are reproduction things, and they are normal habits in bee life.

But there are big difference between bee races and bee strains, when the swarming time is. Difference may be 1-1,5 months. And even those, which do not swarm, they rear drones.

bingevader said:

In all fairness to Dave Cushman, it's TooBee... that is speculating, postulating and hypothesising.
All Dave says is, "The 12's and 13's are used in mating nucs in an attempt to reduce the possibility of drone production."
I think the key words are, "attempt to reduce the possibility".

Click to expand...

Were Mr. Cushman's approach taken as being manipulation of frames
in a dynamic of colony management rather than a regimented
protocol of percieved production increases then his methods
might have a wider acceptance, but as has been said some could not
justify the time spent, and so dismiss out of hand any variation to "the norm".

Perhaps this is where @TooBee is going with his startup - pursuing the oddities
as a first foray in fulfilling an interest. For someone with no more
than the consumption of much text as the prime tool in mounting those first
frames I could only comment "most brave indeed".

Bill

eltalia said:

then his methods
might have a wider acceptance, but

Bill

Click to expand...

But if the idea makes sense at all. It would be in wide use if it is usefull. Beekeeping is full of miracle makers.

Basic idea is to get a big hive, and then move it to good pastures. So you get a good honey yield.

Finman said:

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There are a rumor on beekeeping, that swarming depends on drone rearing start Boath are reproduction things, and they are normal habits in bee life.

Click to expand...

Yes, I've come across Ukrainian and I think Russian beekeepers that have a window in the bottom of their beehive to inspect the bottom bee space, which they have made some inches, I think around 4" to 6", whenever they see the natural drawn comb being built they assume the bees have run out of brood space and IF they are Drone cells then the colony is getting reading to swarm, their solution was to remove the Drone to reduce the swarming urge. However as Finman has said, Drone rearing is natural and I am therefore less inclined to accept this method of hive management, without some science to back it up.

But I had heard and seen pictures that the comb in wild hives is much closer than our domestic hives, which made me more open to the idea of closer frame spacing.

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I have years and seen lots of things during my 55 years beekeeping. Like in this forum, I have seen 10 times more tricks than needed in beekeeping. That imagination is important part of this hobby.
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TooBee... said:

But I had heard and seen pictures that the comb in wild hives is much closer than our domestic hives, which made me more open to the idea of closer frame spacing.

Click to expand...

It isn't.

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What ever wild combs are, frame beekeeping has been so long, that good and bad things have been picked up. And there are lots of variation berween standards in diffwrent countries.

At least I am going to spend any time with wondering "wild hives".
I do not even know, where I could find those wild hives.
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Finman said:

Beekeeping is full of miracle makers.

Click to expand...

Indeed, by far the majority of which exist in Nature... in wild colonies.
And whilst one is focused on honey yield, whether that be for just
104 weeks or four score plus ten years, the miracles made within
the organism will always remain blind to the "bees in a box" 'enthusiast'.

Bill

Hi
I was not intending to Post again on this Thread as I felt I couldn't contribute anything more to the discussion (thanks to those that contributed).

However, as always I often play Devil's Advocate, so I came across this page on Dave Cushman's website in which he states that in 'wild hives' "Comb spacing is usually very consistently 36-38mm centres",
http://dave-cushman.net/bee/natbeenest.html

but without intending to I came across this other website which states that the natural comb spacing for wild bees is 32mm - the caveat, it's with southern African Bees! "Research has shown that the average space between honeycombs in southern African wild bee colonies is 32mm."
https://www.africanfarming.com/thin-plastic-frame-improves-beekeepers/
I am a complete ignoramus in relation to bee breeds, therefore will not comment, except this claim probably isn't that relevant to us...

I'm just providing these links for information, I'm not strongly advocating anything, I started this Thread to gather opinions (which I have) and to provoke my thought process, (which it has), thank you.