[dlowe43]

When you remove a frame of drone brood for varroa control and freeze it, some recommend to feed it back to the bees. How do you go about doing this?

 

[Mike Snodgrass]

scratch it all open with a cappping scratcher and put it back in the hive.

 

[Omie]

I just put the drone frame overnight in the freezer (in a plastic bag), take it out in the morning and let it thaw for about 5 hours (so you don't put something really cold into the hive brood area). I pull out about 15 or 20 or drone pupae per frame to check the number of mites on them (if any), and then I just put the frame back in the hive as is, without scraping open the cappings. They seemed to have no problem cleaning everything out and getting the frame going again.
Some people don't bother freezing, they just scrape the cappings off the frame, knock out the pupae on the ground or to their chickens, and put the frame back in. I have to harden my heart a little more before I can do that (I confess), but I admit it does seem like a more straightforward method.

Either way, you want to check the pupae for mites so it can tell you whether you have a serious mite problem developing or not.

 

[AmericasBeekeeper]

The bees will work with you whether you scrape or just put them back in after thawing.

 

[Omie]

Some people don't bother freezing, they just scrape the cappings off the frame, knock out the pupae on the ground or to their chickens, and put the frame back in. I have to harden my heart a little more before I can do that (I confess), but I admit it does seem like a more straightforward method.

I did it. It wasn't pleasant or easy, but I used an uncapping fork on the mostly capped drone frame in one of my hives today. Quickly. I then just put the frame back in for the bees to clean out. The wax foundation was too soft to try banging the cell contents out. The other drone frame in the other hive was now being used to store nectar, so I didn't have to do anything to that one.
Kind of icky and sad, but I have to remember i was killing the drone brood whether by freezing or uncapping- same result.