Varroa Control - Drone Frame

As part of my varroa control strategy, if you can call it that, I inserted a drone frame into the brood chamber of my main hive, hive two. Drone take ~24 days to mature before emerging from the cell so the varroa are attracted to them. The extra 3 days increases the chances of another of the mother varroa's progeny reaching breeding age.

It wasn't fully capped but I didn't want the drone emerging and unleashing a flood of varroa on the hive. After removal I pulled 20 larvae and counted the mites on them. From this small sample I estimate that 1.5% of the drone brood where maturing while sharing a cell with a varroa mite family.

20 Drones, 3 female varroa

The chickens enjoyed eating the brood. Its not great for the bees because the chickens break the cells down so they have to be redrawn but I know none of the drones or their parasites survived.

The photo below shows a mother varroa mite and her male offspring. The male usually remain in the cell and have a very soft body. I'm guessing they don't like the sun either. This one is making a dash for the shadow on the tip of my thumb, under the larva.

My plan from here, once the new queen has begun laying, is to reinsert the drone frame and give the bees a month or so to repair the damage the chickens have done. By this stage there should be another frame of sacrificial victims so remove. I'll perform the same count and see how the numbers compare. I also need to put a sticky board under the hive and see what the natural mite fall is.