It is known that brood breaks due to swarming or hive splits are depressing the growth of the mite population. The Artificial Brood Break Method (3) uses a special queen cage and prevents the queen completely from laying eggs. Existing brood stays in the colony and can continue to develop.
After 25 days at the latest, the colony is completely brood-free and can effectively be treated, for instance, with Oxalic Acid. As a chemical-free alternative, a trap comb with brood that is ready to be capped can be used to remove the phoretic mites. Studies have shown that there is neither a higher queen mortality, nor a weakening of the hive. Already one month after the brood break, the hives have more brood than the control hives.
The queen cages for this method are commercially available ‘walk-through cages’ with queen excluder size grids in which the worker bees are able to enter and leave the cage.
In addition to the effective Varroa treatment, the honey yield can be increased through this intervention. If the queen is caged about two weeks before the end of the honey flow, the bees that continue to hatch, no longer have to look after young brood, which reduces the need for food. At the same time, the nectar intake of the colony increases because more bees are available for foraging activities.
The CVBC flyer in PFD format for the Artificial Brood Break Method (3) can be downloaded here.