From Bee Culture Magazine, June 2008 pgs. 38-40
Natural Beekeeping: There are numerous non-toxic
alternatives that offer solutions for healthy hives.
Nucleus Colonies


Varroa Mites.  After first being identified within
the United States in 1987, they quickly multiplied
and spread out across America to become one of the
biggest challenges U.S. beekeepers face today.  The
initial response from the beekeeping industry was to
follow the path other agricultural commodity groups
had trod, and turn to chemicals to control these
damaging pests.  History has proven however, that
whenever we use chemicals to control insect pests,
the insects always develop resistance to the
chemicals forcing us to use larger doses of
insecticide, or resort to chemical alternatives that
attack the target organism differently and are often
more toxic. History  simply repeated itself when the
use of Apistan (fluvalinate) quickly led to
fluvalinate resistant mites, ushering in Checkmite+
(coumaphos, an active ingredient in VX nerve gas)
which Varroa also began to tolerate, thus leading to
the latest chemical panacea to be promoted: Hivastan
(fenpyroximate).  Rather than continue on this
chemical treadmill, there are numerous non-toxic
alternatives that are available that offer
longer-term solutions for healthy hives.

Varroa Reproduction and Population Growth
One avenue that we can utilize in helping us to
repress the Varroa population within the colony
takes advantage of the fact that the Varroa
reproductive cycle is intimately tied to the
reproductive cycle of the honey bee.  Once a bee
larva (male or female) completely covers the bottom
of its birthing cell, the female Varroa will be
attracted to the cell.  When a mite is carried by a
bee close to such a cell, the mite will release
itself from the bee and crawl down into the cell,
immersing itself in the brood food at the bottom of
the cell. This period is estimated to be 40-50 hours
for drone brood and 15-20 hours for worker brood.1
At least one stimulus that informs the mite which
cells are ready for reproduction are pheromones
given off by the developing brood in the form of
methyl palmatate.2 Once the cell is capped and the
mite starts laying eggs she will typically have time
to raise to maturity one-to-two daughters on worker
brood and two-to-three daughters on drone brood.

While the mites do not have a very high reproductive
rate individually, their offspring tend to have a
high survival rate when they are successfully raised.
As a result, there is a geometric growth that occurs
in the Varroa population of a hive over the course
of the season.  This is very similar to the old
riddle: Would you rather have a million dollars, or
receive one cent that is doubled every day for the
roughly 24 days that it takes for a drone to develop
from egg to adult? If you chose the penny that is
doubled every day for 24 days, you would end up with
a lot more than a million dollars in the end due to
the geometric growth that occurs from the regular
doubling of the initial amount.  It is a similar
geometric growth that is responsible for the
overwhelming population of Varroa destructor that,
when combined with the queen's natural tendency to
decrease egg laying with the onset of Autumn, causes
colonies to collapse at the end of the season unless
something slows down the Varroa population explosion.

Interrupting the mite's reproductive cycle seems to
be one of the ways that various races of Apis
mellifera such as the Russian bees or Africanized
honey bees are able to naturally exhibit a level of
Varroa tolerance.  The Russian and Africanized bee
stocks seem more likely to throw off a swarm, or
supersede their queen, than their Italian or
Carniolan cousins for example.  As a result, they
naturally interrupt the geometric growth of their
Varroa populations, while at the same time dividing
the total Varroa population in two; some staying
with the parent colony and the rest being carried
with the swarm to the newly established location.
This interruption of the mite's reproductive cycle
slows down the build up of mites and buys the colony
more time.

The Nucleus Colony (An Artificial Swarm)
As beekeepers, we can mimic the swarm's natural form
of mite suppression by making nucleus colonies from
our strongest hives and letting the bees raise their
own queens from the unhatched eggs we provide in the
nuc.  While helping to suppress the growth rate of
the mite population within your colonies, the
nuc-making process reduces swarming pressure on the
colony, while at the same time allowing you to
systematically improve the quality of your stock
through the propagation of the genetics from your
best and strongest hives.  Such locally raised bees
generated from hives that have proven themselves by
thriving in your particular geographical location
while exposed to your unique management practices,
provide the greatest opportunity for future success.

This method of adding colonies to your bee yard also
has the economic advantage of requiring no
additional cash outlays for packages or queens.
Problems with queen installation and acceptance are
eliminated  As long as the nucleus colony is created
properly, your primary concern will be whether the
virgin queen will return from her nuptial mating
flight without getting eaten by a bird!

In Northern locations concerns about inadvertently
importing Africanized Honey Bee (AHB) genetics
through the purchase of packaged bees and queens
from southern or western breeders located in AHB
areas makes locally produced queens all that much
more attractive.

Making The Nuc
Although you can purchase special equipment
specifically designed for making nucleus colonies,
a basic nuc can be easily made by utilizing the
standard equipment you already own.  In order to
work with the bee's natural swarming tendency and
thereby increase your chances of your nuc
successfully raising a viable queen, it is best to
time nuc making so it coincides with the area's
first major honey flow in the spring.  This way, no
additional feeding is typically necessary and the
newly created colony has plenty of time during the
rest of the season to store away plenty of honey for
Winter, and potentially some excess for the
beekeeper.

Place your empty eight or 10-frame hive body on a
bottom board and fill it with three to five frames
containing bees, eggs, sealed brood, honey, and
pollen taken from the parent colony.  Since most of
the frames you will be transferring into the nuc
will be from the brood nest, allowing the bees that
are naturally crawling around on each frame to be
transferred into the nuc along with the frame helps
ensure that there are plenty of young nurse bees to
aid in the raising of the new queen. Just be sure to
leave the queen in the parent colony. 
(Picture #2)

Only one of the frames transferred into the nuc must
contain at least a handful of fertilized unhatched
eggs. While it doesn't hurt to start with a lot more
fertilized eggs in your nuc, the bees should be
given at least a dozen or so in order to have enough
“raw material” to successfully raise a queen. As
long as these eggs are taken from a queen-right
colony and are sitting in worker-sized comb, you can
be relatively sure that the eggs have been
fertilized and were not created by a laying worker
and will hatch into drones.  I like to position the
eggs between two frames of sealed worker brood. This
ensures that the frame with the eggs is positioned
in the middle of the cluster and any queen cells
that are created will be located in the warmest part
of the hive. If the amount of pollen and honey
stored in these three frames is minimal, then
sandwiching the eggs and brood with an additional
frame or two containing honey and pollen and then
fill out the rest of your eight or ten-frame hive
body with frames of either foundation or drawn comb.
 (Picture #3)
If the nuc being created is immediately moved to
another location two or more miles away from the
parent colony, you only have to top your nascent
colony with an inner and outer cover, and reduce the
entrance to just a small opening in order to reduce
robbing. If the nucleus colony will be left in the
same apiary as the hive from which it was made, two
or three additional frames of  bees will have to be
shaken into the nuc before being covered and having
the entrance reduced.  These frames need to be full
of brood comb so that the majority of the additional
bees being shaken into the nuc are young bees that
have yet to go on their initial flights outside the
hive. This step is crucial in order to prevent
massive depopulation of the nuc as the older
foraging bees acclimated to the original hive
location return to the parent colony following their
next foraging trip. Once the nucs have been set up,
I like to wait 30 days for the new queen to hatch,
go on her nuptial mating flight and begin laying.
Open up the hive too early and you run the risk of
damaging unhatched queen cells or not being able to
tell if things are progressing as planned due to an
absence of freshly laid eggs.  

Following Up
It is during the new queen's formative period that
the Varroa reproductive cycle will come to a halt
with no new eggs being layed, and a minimal amount
of young brood to infest.  After waiting a month,
the hive containing the original queen will not
have experienced a disruption of its brood-rearing,
and should contain frames with sealed worker brood.
This hive will likely have filled the empty frames
with honey, pollen or brood, or drawn out and filled
the foundation you had given them to replace the
frames taken when making the nuc and will be in need
of additional room.  Meanwhile, upon its initial
30-day inspection, the nuc will not contain sealed
brood but should have a newly mated queen that is
laying her first eggs. It is not necessary to find
the queen to confirm she is there. If unhatched eggs
are present, you can feel secure in knowing that
your efforts have been successful without actually
seeing the queen.

Care must be taken however not to confuse a laying
worker, or non-fertile queen, with a successfully
mated queen who is just learning the ropes. On
numerous occasions I have observed that the first
eggs laid by a new queen may look similar to those
of a drone-laying queen or worker. Eggs flopped over
on their sides or not positioned in the apex at the
back of the cell, as well as more than one egg in a
cell, are all part of the learning curve the new
queen may go through as she grows into her role
within the hive and figures out the nuances of her
plumbing. It is the frequency at which such
instances are discovered that helps the beekeeper
distinguish between the hive with a mated queen and
the one with a drone layer or laying worker. Cells
with mislaid eggs will be the norm when dealing with
the latter, rather than the exception occurring
early in the egg-laying career of the former.

Beekeeping has entered a new era.  Chemically
resistant Varroa mites, new diseases and more
virulent strains of old diseases, small hive beetles,
changing weather patterns, and Colony Collapse
Disorder are just some of the new challenges and
stresses the honey bee must now contend with.  This
new era calls for new approaches to caring for and
managing these miraculous insects. Greater
consideration needs to be given to management styles
that focus on techniques that minimize or eliminate
additional stress on the hive rather than create new
forms of stress that the bees must deal with. The
new era will emphasize the importance of working
with the bees' natural instincts and biological
processes rather than forcing our will on them
through dominating management techniques.  Using
chemicals to try to control Varroa populations while
exposing the bees to the stress of the sub-lethal
effects of such chemicals, allowing residue buildup
in the combs, and fostering chemical resistance
among the mites is part of the old, domineering way
of doing things.  

Ultimately, a future where the honey bee can not
survive and flourish without constant and regular
intervention on the part of the beekeeper is not
much of a future at all.  We need to nurture
long-term solutions that allow the honey bee and the
Varroa mite to co-exist without the host being
destroyed by its parasitic hive mate.  While nuc
making alone is not typically enough to keep a hive
from eventually succumbing to the effects of
Varroatosis, it is part of an overall program of
gradual improvement of colony genetics that
encourages those hives that show the most tolerance
and ability to thrive despite the presence of Varroa,
to reproduce and keep their traits alive and
evolving.  As a result, the work of bee breeders and
backyard beekeepers who are striving to propagate
new strains of stronger more robust colonies of bees
in the face of the Varroa mite is among the most
important work going on in beekeeping today.  


1.Keith S. Delaplane, Thomas C. Webster, Mites of
 the Honey Bee, Dadant & Sons, Hamilton, IL, pg. 137




2.S. Hart, “Baby Bee Odor Lures Cradle-robbing 
 Mites,” Science News (August 12, 1989): 103