# Treatment free with no brood break



## joebeewhisperer (May 13, 2020)

My Russians will go broodless if you sneeze around them. You’d probably have to be in Savannah to keep them brooding all year. But they are ridiculously small in winter and a month behind everything else in spring.

Bob Binnie released a series of videos on varroa with Jennifer Barry and some young guy from the UK. They confined the queen above an excluder on a single frame (surrounded by honey frames or foundation), then waited X days and removed that frame, let her down below, then used OAV on day 21 from the time they moved her.

I imagine you could adopt something similar and maybe get most all your mites in one place. Not sure. I’ll see if I can find and post. I just saw it like 3-4 days ago.

edit:


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## AWayHugePickle (Dec 30, 2021)

That's pretty interesting. I've watched some of bob's videos before, I'll check that one out too. That's kind of the situation I'm in down here. Go with a breed that over winters extremely small, like Russians, to get an almost brood break but they are behind when spring gets here.

Edit: fixed spelling error


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Confining the queen to a single frame for mite control.


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## gator75 (Apr 21, 2021)

RayMarler said:


> Confining the queen to a single frame for mite control.
> View attachment 67573
> View attachment 67574
> View attachment 67575
> ...





http://lcbaor.org/Supportfiles/LCBA_talks/QCC_uses.pdf


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

AWayHugePickle said:


> Down time during the nectar flow is no good for the beekeeper or the bees, they don't get their stores up for winter.


yes and no
ask your self 
A-how long does it take an egg to become a forager bee?
B-when does your flow end

subtract A from B and that's the date a laying queen stops impacting your harvest, any eggs after that won't collect form the flow and the lack of brood rearing is said to free up more bees to forage


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Unless you treat your hives when broodless being broodless on its own is just a waste of time. Three weeks before your flow is due to start, remove the queen and a frame of bees and another frame of stores and put them into a nuc. At the end of three weeks treat your hive with OAV and if they do not have a queen on the way re-introduce your queen that is in the nuc. However early in the spring there should not be many mites anyhow, the break and treatment would be better after the summer solstice.


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## AWayHugePickle (Dec 30, 2021)

msl said:


> yes and no
> ask your self
> A-how long does it take an egg to become a forager bee?
> B-when does your flow end
> ...


If you free up brood rearing workers so they can switch over to foraging technically you could have a brood break and an increase in honey production, if timed properly and the weather allows. I didn't really think of that. I was focused more on the fall/winter side of things where the population of the bees dwindles and the varroa can get to a dangerous threshold.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

johno said:


> Unless you treat your hives when broodless being broodless on its own is just a waste of time.











in a treatment free context I disagree, as it has a significant impact, even more so its su
ggested when dealing with bees that have MB or grooming traits.. and has more knock down then a brood on OAV
its all about the reduction on breeding days and expontainal growth.. but that said its a race to a broodless winter.. with out that your just dealying things and, like a singe brood on OAV, its not enuff of knock down to help if the bees are in trouble

the OP might look in to a break trap frame to have a higher impact


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Msl , that stuff is all thumbsuck I have not seen any credible evidence that it is only when broodless that these so called grooming traits can lower the mite population. If this was true those colonies would be completely mite free at the end of winter. I have watched as bees groom each other and a mite on the bee being groomed moves away from the grooming bee and as the gromming bee moves around so does the mite move away. I am not saying that a bee could not catch a mite now and again just like a blind squirrel might find a nut now and again but I find this story of grooming hard to swallow. Of course, when these grooming bees fail it has to be from mites migrating from collapsing hives or so the story goes when the theory cannot be maintained.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

johno said:


> Msl , that stuff is all thumbsuck I have not seen any credible evidence that it is only when broodless that these so called grooming traits can lower the mite population


Not what I said

mites being phoric longer increases the chance of being bitten





johno said:


> If this was true those colonies would be completely mite free at the end of winter


not completely, just like an colony with winter OA a isn't 100% mite free
but indeed with many untreated colony's, the mites are much lower in the spring then the late fall




__





Final report for FNE16-840 - SARE Grant Management System







projects.sare.org




while I feel the program showed the failings of TF management (despite some of the top names involved) it a good look at mite population dynamins in a area with a real winter


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Of course mite checks in spring are much lower than fall as more mites are phoretic as brood rearing ends however in the spring all those phoretic mites are in the brood, all those mature mites who have sat around on bees during the winter will be into the first lot of brood ready to cap. If your colonies had around three OAV treatments while broodless I am pretty sure that they must be pretty close to 100% mite free.


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