One tip for the drone comb. Have an uncapping fork with you in the beeyard. Sacrifice some drones by sliding the fork along the brood caps at a depth that catches the thorax. Twist and lift. You will pull up about 20 pupae. Quickly turn the fork over and examine the abdomens. If you have a varroa mite problem you will see them on what you just pulled up. The gouges in this breeder drone frame is me doing that. No mites or one mite on 3 fork samples, carryon. Any more than 1 mite, reconsider which hive you are going to put the frame in to emerge. I setup a separate compressed hive at the far edge of the mating yard called "The Barracks". All the capped drone combs go into that hive. In this way, the concentration of varroa from drone combs is in the one hive. Alcohol wash once a week followed by a shot of OAV if warranted. The barracks is also restocked with frequent shakes of nurse bees and lots of open nectar combs to caretake the emerged drones. When the drones mature and get flying, they naturally disperse amongst all the other hives and nucs in the area.
... Hope that helps!
As for nice brood patches here are a couple of pinups. There are better frames deeper in, these are typical in my hives at this time. In the one picture: the frame on the right is packed with pollen, the frame on the left is centre capped and laid right to the bars, the frame still in the box below is capped to the bars except for the centre where her first spring brood patch had just recently emerged and already been relaid. That is only 3 frames into the box. I figure that one is a keeper. ;) The last picture is just another example of what I am looking for as I go through deciding who gets to keep her head on and who gets sent off by the hive tool guillotine.
