Windows – Gracefully reload Apache config on Windows

I have an application that uses Apache (2.0.63) and mod_jk (1.2.27) as a load balancer in front of n number of Tomcat servers. All of these applications are bound to Windows (I know that Apache and Tomcat are not bound to Windows, but the application running inside them is). When you install a tomcat server we programmatically update the workers.properties file to let the load balancer know about the new server.

Currently once we update the workers.properties file we call Apache.exe -k restart so that Apache will pick up the new configuration changes.

I'm looking for a way to do this more gracefully. Currently we are having problems with other parts of the application because Apache is suddenly cutting their connection on the restart. Is there a way to gracefully reload the workers.properties file by sending a command to mod_jk or Apache?

Thanks!