[Laurieston]

In keeping with standard practice I have sacrificed my (?) drones for the greater good.  I then hung the frame up and watched the Great Tits picking out the lavae, and the bees re-gathering the little bits of honey which were in the frame. 

I am wondering if I can just return the now empty drone cell filled frame (albeit now a little mis-shapen) back into the hive so it can be refilled with drone brood.  Thereby saving all the effort and resource of drawing out wax again.  In principle this seems like a good idea.  But my concerns go like this...

• Would or could this risk returning the mites right back into the hive?

What kills the mites?  Would they did when the frame got too cold, either outdoor temperature, or maybe I should pop the frame into the deep freeze overnight.
Any ideas?
Thanks.

[Plantoid]

Seeing as varroa  just love to hatch in along with drones and you have watched the workers rob out the frames after the tits have  taken out uncapped drone brood I'd say there is a more than fair chance that the workers have taken lots of varroa back into the hives .
 
 I seem to recall that if you deep freeze the brood combed frames that will kill the varroa and leave you the option of uncapping it a , letting tits take the grub and bees to rob the honey.
 
If you have your own extractor you could spin uncapped drone frames put the grubs and honey  through a filter coth and feed it back to the hive ,  Pour boiling water over the grubs  etc to kill everything & strain  the grubs off . Then leave the resutant liquid for the bees to work through ,. save the grubs for fresh water fishing or someone who fishes as apparently they make a reasonable bait.
 
 I myself used to use an onion slicing comb  slightly bent betwek tow strips of wood  and hand uncapped any sealed drone brood , the comb usually took out all the grubs which I took  out into the composter or gave to my mate for his chickens . I then extraced the frames along with any other brood frames I had in the warming cabinet.