Drone comb frames - Are they worthwhile?

[2Sox]

Does anyone use these?  What do you think of them?

[van from Arkansas]

Sox, I use the greenframe, large cell.  The bees wax the cells as any frame, just larger cells.  The queen will fill with drone eggs.

I place the green drone frames in hives that I consider breeder quality as I want the drones for breeding.  Support quality hives do not receive green frame and I destroy the drones with freeze spray.  This is a means for selective breeding by controlling the drones but is certainly not absolute as the queens often fly out of range.  But, I do what I can.

Some use green frame for varroa control and freeze the capped drone brood killing the varroa and the drones.

[jalentour]

I put them in honey supers, with varying results.

[TheHoneyPump]

Like Van,
I use green drone frames in the big hives that I want mating drones from. To ensure the frames get packed out with drones, I also feed those colonies copious amounts of supplements and syrup.  It takes ALOT of resources to raise a single frame of drones. The hive needs to feel it has abundance before it will produce any significant amount of drones.

I do not use for varroa removal. Experimented with that. Once. The results were poor, inconsistent, and severely set back the strength and power of the hives. Missed out on a impactful percentage of the honey crop because of it. Never again. There are other methods that are much better for controlling varroa which do not cause setbacks.

Interesting idea of using them in the honey supers. That, I have not tried.  What are the pros-cons of using them for honey frames?   Do tell ....

[BeeMaster2]

THP,
Drone cell frames have more space for the honey, less wax and are heavier than worker cell frames. I often put natural drawn drone frames in the honey supers.
I have one of those green frames. Once I read up on what others here on BeeMaster had experienced way back in 2011, I never bothered to put it in a hive.
Jim Altmiller

[Acebird]

Honey frames or outside frames of the brood nest.

[BeeMaster2]

Honey frames or outside frames of the brood nest.

Honey frames in the supers. Sometimes I will put them in the outer frames when a put a large swarm in I full hive.
Jim Altmiller

[Michael Bush]

The problem is that I don't want to breed for Varroa that prefer workers.  So I don't want to remove the Varroa who prefer drones.  If you put them in and leave them, sure.  But if you just let them do what they want it won't matter because they will have drones.

[incognito]

The problem is that I don't want to breed for Varroa that prefer workers.

I'm not sure that is what you would be doing. Is attempting to eradicate one the same as breeding for the other?

Wouldn't a weaker strain result (the reverse of natural selection)? The benefit of a shorter incubation period must be more than offset by negative traits evolution presumably rejected.

[AR Beekeeper]

Calderone at Penn State tried to select for varroa mites that preferred worker brood, but he was unable to do so.  His conclusion was that using drone brood to trap mites would not select for varroa that preferred worker brood.

The first three brood cycles in the spring, when the bees first start raising drones, are the most productive and do the most toward reducing the growth rate of the mites.  With many colonies it becomes a lot of effort, and it will not be sufficient to control mites over an extended period.

The Dutch used a method of splitting combined with drone brood trapping and removal that was successful in controlling varroa over several years.  This method was copied from Vietnam beekeepers.

 Do a search on Calderone Drone Brood Removal and Charrriere, Jean-Daniel et al, for studies about the process.  IPM techniques help to keep mite levels low, but they are not for unorganized beekeepers, they must be done on schedule or they often increase mite levels.

[van from Arkansas]

Impressive AR, well stated.  Evidently you do your data research.

[TheHoneyPump]

THP,
Drone cell frames have more space for the honey, less wax and are heavier than worker cell frames. I often put natural drawn drone frames in the honey supers.
I have one of those green frames. Once I read up on what others here on BeeMaster had experienced way back in 2011, I never bothered to put it in a hive.
Jim Altmiller

About to go into first heavy flow next week once these winds and rain clouds clear off.  On the question of using the drone combs for honey supers.  As an experiment I will go plop a full box (10F) of unused green drone foundation frames onto one of the bigger hives, just to see what happens.  A super of regular honey frames will be put onto the smaller hive next to the big one.  Lets see which fills up first.  ;)

[BeeMaster2]

THP,
Sounds like a great experiment. Bee sure to put a fresh coat of wax on the green frames. If they have been sitting around for years, the wax will bee old and dry and they will not build on it properly.
Jim Altmiller

[Michael Bush]

>His conclusion was that using drone brood to trap mites would not select for varroa that preferred worker brood.

But obviously it would.  Anytime you select you select for the thing you are selecting for.  By removing Varroa that infest drones there is no way that you are not selecting out the Varroa that prefer drones.  That's how selection works.

[AR Beekeeper]

Tell me, when Calderone tried to raise mites that preferred worker brood, why did he fail?

There is always more varroa mites in worker brood in a colony than there is in drone brood, so by letting those emerge are we selecting for worker brood preference?  The thought that by removing 1 to 3 cycles of drone brood in a colony is going to change mite reproduction is silly.   

The foundress mite rode the nurse bee until she smelled larvae of the right age for her to enter the cell, then she dropped off.  If she smells much larvae of the proper age, and she detects that much of it is drone larvae, then she is more selective about which cell she enters because she is not under pressure to find a cell to reproduce in.
 
Removing worker brood would be as effective as removing drone brood, except we know that removing drone brood will slow the mite's growth rate faster than removing worker brood (2.6 versus 1.3).  We also, like the colony, consider drones expendable. 

Here, using drone comb removal for the first 2 brood cycles, will usually keep varroa levels below the economic threshold until August, this means 1 less treatment.       

[TheHoneyPump]

THP,
Sounds like a great experiment. Bee sure to put a fresh coat of wax on the green frames. If they have been sitting around for years, the wax will bee old and dry and they will not build on it properly.
Jim Altmiller

Experiment complete.  3 year old unused bare dry foundation drone comb. Old but new In the cardboard box. Used as is, no waxing treatment.

Method;  10 frame box of bare drone comb foundation plopped onto a good hive on a strong flow. 
Results:  10 perfectly drawn frames pretty much full up with honey.
Conclusion:  fill the honey supers with otherwise unused abandoned drone frames. Drone frame = honey frame.

[Beelab]

I am just wondering about the benefit of raising drones when you want to breed from a really productive queen.
We don?t have Varroa yet in Australia. So my question is what the benefit is to raise a frame of drones when you want to graft from a queen. Because, she won?t breed with her drones, neither would you want her to.  So why? Varroa aside.
Guess varroa changed beekeeping practices big time. But here we are still in the dark ages and old wisdom may apply, if anyone could remember?
I?ll be grateful for any answers.

[AR Beekeeper]

The drone  mothers are from a different line of bees than the queen mothers.  They both have the traits that you want to have in your colonies.  The area around your mating nuc yards are flooded with your drones to improve the chances of passing on the traits.

When varroa first came into my area of the U.S., varroa sensitive hygiene was seldom seen in my bees or in the bees kept by other beekeepers that I knew.  We started buying queens bred for that trait and in just a few years the trait was common in lines of bees that did not show it before.

The same procedure is used when trying to improve any line of bees, select both queen mothers and drone mothers, then flood the area with drones from the drone mothers.

The colonies that produce the drones must be treated for varroa before placing drone comb into them, and colonies that have donor frames given to them must be checked on a schedule to see that varroa is not building up to dangerous levels. 

[Beelab]

I wonder if any beekeeper in varroa countries still raises drones for flooding apiaries rather than killing them off as carriers of varroa.
If you all raise drones and kill them off as carriers of varroa, what fertiles the queens?

[BeeMaster2]

Beelab,
I do not know of any beekeepers that remove drone brood to kill varroa. One problem with doing that is that you will bee selecting varroa that lay their eggs in worker brood. Not a good thing.
Jim Altmiller