Drone brood inspection - low varroa count

Having recently removed lots of drone brood from Hive Amidala and put it in the freezer to kill any nasties, today I took it out to investigate the varroa situation. Having had a very low mite drop count a few weeks ago I was quite optimistic.

I spread newspaper across the kitchen table and rummaged inside the plastic bag. I discovered that freezers are not cold enough to freeze honey. Sticky, sticky. At first I used an uncapping fork, but soon resorted to simply snapping the comb apart to let the frozen larvae and pupae tumble out. More and more came, and at times I found the job a little grizzly. In all I probably glanced over a few hundred little white semi-bees. Soon the newspaper was covered in broken comb and dead bees. I had gathered my 4 young kids round to join in the process and I talked them through what was going on: I do hope they got something out of the experience.

The good news: I only spotted one varroa mite in the whole inspection. This is in marked contrast to last year when I had tried uncapping a few drone brood cells in the hive and found an average of 3 varroa per cell!  So, the very low count seen on the varroa floor a few weeks ago is confirmed. However, I still plan to treat with Apiguard immediately after I remove the supers in early August, and follow this up with Oxalic acid in December. I am impressed that last year's treatments seem to have been effective. I did not perform any shook swarms this year, and don't feel I have to next year for varroa control reasons. However, some frame replacement will, I think, be desirable anyway just as a policy of regular replacement.