Darwinian beekeeping 

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I use one old brood comb and fill out the remainder of the box with frames with starter strips of foundation.

He said 10 per cent-not 10 in ‘a count.’ If your count is 10 mites in 300 bees that would be 3.3 percent. If your count was 30 mites in 300 bees that would be 10 percent which he recommended euthanizing. He did also propose a beekeeper might euthanize at 5% or 2%. I think he was leaving it up to each individual where they might draw the line. Seemed like 10% was his personal max aka 30 mites in 300 bees.

I am foundationless and have been for 15 years. A healthy colony is going to build a lot of drone comb on foundationless frames. You can cut it out but if they want drones they will build it back because that is want bees do to reproduce. I like drone comb. Many drones mean well mated queens and well mated health queens are critical to healthy colonies.

@@tonyjetton8352 Thank you Tony for your reply. Usually people who use foundationless frames are concerned about the bees but I have more selfish motives. If I develop a method to get the bees to build worker only cells, would that be of benefit to you?

@@joeclen79 It would not be of benefit to me personally. I want lots of my drones from my bees in my yard. I see a benefit in saturating my bee yard with drones from my most desirable queens to insure their genetics are passed on. Many bee keepers do think negatively of drones. They eat a lot of honey and do no work. Any method you devise to limit drone production would be seen as favorable by them.

@@tonyjetton8352 Hi Tony. What type of frames do you use. Do you use treatments. What do you do with the frames of honey. Have you any tips for getting the honey frames drawn evenly. Have you had any experience with the Layens type hive? You can answer as much or as little of this as you like, no pressure.

@@joeclen79 I use frames with the wooden wedge under the top bar as would be used with foundation but I only install a 1.5 inch wide starter strip of foundation. I also use foundationless frames which have a wooden guide under the top bar. Either way the bees get to build the comb they want. To get straight comb I insert an empty foundationless frame or a frame with a starter strip between two straight combs in the brood nest. The bees draw it out nicely. At present I harvest honey by crush and strain so all the crooked comb in the honey supers gets crushed, melted down and stored. I count mites using the sugar shake/roll method. If I have a hive with a high mite load I do not let it perish. I treat with oxalic acid when they are bloodless and MAQS when there is brood present. I treat the hive but kill then replace the queen with a queen know to offer some mite resistantance. I raise those replacement queens from colonies that show good mite suppression. This is exactly why I want the colonies producing drones. I want the drone congregation areas saturated with my drones so my queens can mate with drones of good genetics and not droves from colonies that may not be as mite resistant. There is absolute no need to destroy a hive as Dr. Seeley does. Just kill the mites, kill the queen and cut out all the drone comb and replace the queen with a better one. The bad genetics will end with that approach and the hive can live to try again. Killing the entire hive accomplishes nothing more than my method.