# Just how much less room is there?



## BjornBee (Feb 7, 2003)

In referencing small cell bees, it is mentioned that there is less room for the V-mites to reproduce. If a bigger bee is in a bigger cell, than is there really that much "free" room for the mite to roam. The early capping and a day shorter before emerging makes sense but what study or backing of information shows a vast difference in the room available for mating. Any studies or information to pass on. Thank you.

I understand the early capping means less mites entering the cell, and early emergence means less mite cycle completions, but room availabilty meaning into the equation?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>In referencing small cell bees, it is mentioned that there is less room for the V-mites to reproduce. If a bigger bee is in a bigger cell, than is there really that much "free" room for the mite to roam.

I would speculate that until the bee has filled out the cell there is more room in the bigger cell for longer, but by the time it has filled the cell, I would think the cell would still be full, but I don't know if anyone has tried to measure this.

>The early capping and a day shorter before emerging makes sense but what study or backing of information shows a vast difference in the room available for mating. Any studies or information to pass on. Thank you.

I haven't heard of any on the subject of less room. But I think the "less room to breed" theory is based on the fact that the females that hatch have to find the male to mate and if there is less room to manuver they may fail at this. It could be measured by opening the cells the same number of days post capping, before emergence (of both small and large infested cells) and counting the number of fertile females in proportion to the unfertilized females. This would indicate that less, more or the same number managed to mate. Maybe someone has done this experiment, but I don't know of it.


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Everybody,

Studies have been done in Europe detailing the mites behavior in capped cells. Plastic cells were used and a video record generated by observing the mites with the bee larva through the bottom of the plastic cells. 

I'm not sure of the cells diameter but will assume it was large cell size.

The mites must push the bees legs aside in order to develope a feeding/mating area on the pupa. I have wondered if this activity is restricted or more readily sensed by bees on small cell comb. Maybe the mites make too much noise. :> )

My latest observations on seasonal bee size versus comb cell size could indicate the tightness of fit between the pupa and the cell wall is an important factor. Absolute cell size may not be.

Regards
Dennis


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## Scot Mc Pherson (Oct 12, 2001)

If you want to measure to different in volume of the cells, one can do a fairly simple test, though it would require a number of them to get an accurate estimate.
Use water, since water is stable in mass and volume. I'll use the metric system, because it will make the math much easier.

Take 100 empty cells, 50 being on each side of the comb. Weight the empty comb to get a TARE. Then fill the comb with water and weight again. Subtract the tare and you have your weight in water in grams.

The number of grams of water equal exactly the number of mililiters or cubic centimeters.

How fill up a graduated beaker of water leaving enough room to submerge 100 fully matured brood from within 100 cells. Submerge the bees, and aggitate the water to displace any air pockets around the bees and measure the new volume of water. The difference is how much space the bees take up. If you take this measurement and subtract it from the measurement of water in the cells, you will have determined the volume of "free space" within 100 cells of capped worker brood.

Obviously you have to do this twice, once for small cells and once for the big cells.


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-- 
Scot Mc Pherson
"Linux is a Journey, not a Guided Tour" ~ Me


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## MIKI (Aug 15, 2003)

Michael was thinking of conducting a video type experiment to attempt to pinpoint the capping to emergence time of small cell bees as opposed to large cell bees. This may (hopefully) prove that it is a time cycle driven process.
Either way regressing seems to be a very large part of mite control. I have been over Bwranglers web site a dozen times reading all his small cell info. The most promising results I read were that he has 3 hives in their 3rd season with no treatments at all. Im not going to second guess the studies. Im going to try it and pray it works here as well, so many factors that can influence results, its mind boggling.

Dennis Im attempting to correspond with Mr. Kober waiting for a reply also you sold me on top bars Im going to give them a try!

MIKI


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