# Why does small cell deter varoa?



## allrawpaul (Jun 7, 2004)

Even if varoa cant breed in small cells, If drone comb is the major source of varoa offspring, shouldnt the mites raised in drone comb be enough to severly impair colony health? Thanks!


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Even if varoa cant breed in small cells, If drone comb is the major source of varoa offspring, shouldnt the mites raised in drone comb be enough to severly impair colony health? Thanks!

The why is all speculation beyond measuring capping and post capping times. Most small cell people have observed more chewing out of Varroa and biting of mites. I can't say why it would change behavior but it seems to. Varroa living on drones is the norm in it's natural host. If the Varroa stick with the drones it's not a big problem, but I don't even see mites on the drone brood very often. In fact I don't see many mites at all anymore.

Speculating on why it should or shouldn't is just that. Speculation. I leave a lot of drone comb in all my hives. I never cull it out. I do try to keep it on the outsides of the brood nest.


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## golddust-twins (Sep 8, 2007)

>Most small cell people have observed more chewing out of Varroa and biting of mites. I can't say why it would change behavior but it seems to.

Would this behavior be due to small cell only or would it be due to a combination of small cell and hygenic bees? Inother words if you had packaged italians and regressed them to sc would this alone produce such behavior. Or does one need to requeen in conjuction with sc to produce such behavior?

thanks,
Corinne


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## ScadsOBees (Oct 2, 2003)

How about this?
The small cell bees are smaller, which makes that varroa mites larger reletive to the bee's size, and therefore draws more attention to them!!

Just rampant speculation 

Rick


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## Dubhe (Jul 19, 2007)

What are the relative cell sizes of AHB and A. ceranae as compared to feral EHB? 

Is their resistance to varroa due to hygenic behavior only or are there other mechanisms at play?


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## allrawpaul (Jun 7, 2004)

another question is why are wild colonys disappearing when they are on natural cell?


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## WVbeekeeper (Jun 4, 2007)

ScadsOBees said:


> How about this?
> The small cell bees are smaller, which makes that varroa mites larger reletive to the bee's size, and therefore draws more attention to them!!
> 
> Just rampant speculation
> ...


I have to agree with that statement. The smaller the organism, the larger the 
world and everything in it through its eyes. You know how children are always 
noticing things that adults don't because they see the world differently. Rick, 
when I read this post yesterday I was speculating the same idea but it does
make a lot of sense that the size of the bee itself would cause it to better 
realize that there is a parasite in their midst and to take care of it.


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## WVbeekeeper (Jun 4, 2007)

allrawpaul said:


> another question is why are wild colonies disappearing when they are on natural cell?


Actually, they seem to be making comeback. All of the non varroa resistant 
colonies were wiped out and it has taken time for the resistant or hygienic
colonies to propagate. Don't confuse natural cell with small cell, they are not 
the same thing. Another reason that I have read that feral colonies are making 
a comeback is due to the introduction of varroa resistant bees like Minnesota 
Hygienic, Russian, SMR, VSH, and so on and also people just breeding for more 
resistant stock. It makes sense that when a swarm from one of these colonies
escapes the grasp of the beekeeper and bounds of the apiary that it would
have a much greater chance of surviving with no intervention from man than
the average bees from 25 years ago.


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## Gene Weitzel (Dec 6, 2005)

One other fact about sc is that there are more bees produced per area unit of comb. This equates to more bees per hive. This has been observed in recent sc vs. lc studies. More bees per hive to me is a good thing.


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## WVbeekeeper (Jun 4, 2007)

Gene Weitzel said:


> One other fact about sc is that there are more bees produced per area unit of comb. This equates to more bees per hive. This has been observed in recent sc vs. lc studies. More bees per hive to me is a good thing.


 What I'd like to know is, how can a queen lay more eggs by simply laying 
them in a smaller cell? I don't think she can. IMHO, and this is just more 
speculation, the reason there is more bees in a small colony is that their 
bodies do not wear out as quickly as a larger bees will. They simply live longer
and this will cause more bees to be in the hive. Even if they live just 2 days 
longer this will be 3000-4000 more bees in the colony. It could be due to 
capping and post capping times. Could this be where they pick up a few extra
days of life? If I remember correctly, in the video with Jennifer Berry's 
presentation http://www.heartlandbees.com/berry2007.htmthat 
was that the number of extra bees was not very significant. This leads me to 
believe that the smaller bees live a little longer, not that the queen lays more 
eggs in small cell.
Another interesting thing in the study is that brood in small cell contained 
more varroa than brood in large cell. If you're willing to put up with more 
varroa to have those few extra bees bee my guest.


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## Oldbee (Sep 25, 2006)

Wild colonies disappearing: "Actually, they seem to be making a comeback." --WVbeekeeper.

That is good to know! Let's hope that is what is or has been going on since varroa arrived about 20? years ago or so. Even if there were a few wild colonies that were hygienic/resistant to varroa in a 100 square mile area, I suspect only a small percentage [>1-2% ?] of those colonies and swarms would have survived the first 10-15 years after varroa arrived. Some of them may even have succumbed for other reasons than varroa: resistance lost? Ten to fifteen years isn't that long a time for some kind of hygienic/resistant honeybee to,.........."evolve"?.......survive, considering how devastating varroa is.


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## WVbeekeeper (Jun 4, 2007)

>Ten to fifteen years isn't that long a time for some kind of hygienic/resistant honeybee to,.........."evolve"?.......survive, considering how devastating varroa is.

I think the more proper term would be "propagate" instead of "evolve". It took 
the honey bee millions of years to get where it is today so 10 or 15 years is 
extremely insignificant. As for propagation, if you have one feral colony that is
resistant, hygienic, tolerant, survivor, or whatever you want to call it and it 
swarms twice in a season, this will give you 3 colonies at year's end. If they 
overwinter and swarm twice again, now you have 9. The next year 27, the 
next 81, 243, 729, 2187, 6561, 19683, and 59049 new colonies from just 1 
colony in ten short years. Of course this would never happen due to all the 
variables involved, but you can see how rapidly they can multiply over a few 
years. The ones who have survived are making a comeback.
I know I've made a few donations to the local ecosystem in the form of escaped 
swarms over the last few years that comprised of hygienic or resistant bees.


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## allrawpaul (Jun 7, 2004)

If you use small cell starter strips, will the bees draw all small cells on that frame or will they switch to natural size?


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## Gene Weitzel (Dec 6, 2005)

WVbeekeeper said:


> What I'd like to know is, how can a queen lay more eggs by simply laying
> them in a smaller cell? I don't think she can. IMHO, and this is just more
> speculation, the reason there is more bees in a small colony is that their
> bodies do not wear out as quickly as a larger bees will. They simply live longer
> ...


1. She can lay more eggs simply because there are more cells available per frame, this means a larger boodnest in terms of cell counts. I agree that the extra days of life probably account for some of the difference, but I don't think that the increased number of cells in the broodnest can be ignored either.

2. Every sc critic seems to want to quote this study as evidence that there will be more varroa in sc hives than the lc hives. The fact is and it was pointed out by Berry herself that the counts were small in both cases and the differences were statistically insignificant. That means the differences between the two were within the margin of error for the counting procedures, so in reality absolutely no conclusions can be drawn from the difference in the magnitude of the numbers. Don't get me wrong, I am not convinced that sc is the "cure all" that some claim it to be. I like the smaller bees (and more of them) because I am in AHB territory. Since AHB use small cells naturally, I feel that by using small cell on my bees it may just put them on a little more equal footing with the AHB and perhaps help them to out compete them. I have no evidence of this, but it seems somewhat logical to me.


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## WVbeekeeper (Jun 4, 2007)

"Of paramount importance is the colony to be split must be a strong colony which has BROOD (eggs, larva, & capped pupa) occupying about 800 square inches of comb space on one side. (A deep frame has 140 sq. in. of comb on each side )

In addition to brood, the comb also has cells filled with pollen, nectar, and honey. Mentally estimate how many sq. in. of all three types of brood there are among all the 20 frames of the brood chamber. About mid April, you should have brood in various amounts on 6 to 10 frames primarily in the middle of the two hive bodies; and you should have maybe 20% less about April 1st.

By the way, you should know that there are 55.3 cells per square inch counting BOTH sides of the comb; so when you measure 800 sq. inche's on ONE SIDE of the comb, you are looking at about 27.6 cells x 800 = 22,000 future bees meaning your queen has been laying about 1000 eggs each day for the past 21 days."

From; http://www.mainebee.com/articles/pinkmar.php 

>(A deep frame has 140 sq. in. of comb on each side )
>By the way, you should know that there are 55.3 cells per square inch....

So this gives us 7742 cells per side of comb. Let's assume this is LC or at 
least something bigger than SC. If a queen lays 1500 eggs a day on average,
it will take her >5 days. If she lays 2000 eggs a day it will take <4 days. Given
the variance of >5 and <4 days, how can she lay faster if the cells are smaller?

>She can lay more eggs simply because there are more cells available per frame, this means a larger boodnest in terms of cell counts.

I have thought about this. If the brood is compacted and closer together it 
would take less bees to incubate the brood. But since the bees are smaller to 
begin with, and on scale with the brood, they should not be able to incubate
more brood than larger bees of the same number on an equal amount of 
brood.

>>She can lay more eggs simply because there are more cells available per frame, this means a larger boodnest in terms of cell counts.

Unless she can lay more than the average, all she is doing is laying the 
average amount of eggs. A queen on small cell will not lay a frame of eggs 
much faster than cited above. It will also her take her a little longer to move 
on to the next frame since she has to lay more eggs per frame!

>I agree that the extra days of life probably account for some of the difference, but I don't think that the increased number of cells in the broodnest can be ignored either.

I'm glad you agree. I would say that that a smaller more natural size 
contributes greatly to a slightly higher population opposed to how many eggs 
a queen can lay in a frame. Look how young Ralph Waldo Emerson was when 
he passed as well as other unnaturally large people. Their organs failed them. 
Just as the organs of bees do when they are forced to be bigger than they 
naturally are. I would like to see a study of life span based on cell size. Until 
I do I will continue to believe that smaller bees or natural bees live longer 
than bees raised from large cell.

>Every sc critic seems to want to quote this study as evidence that there will be more varroa in sc hives than the lc hives.

Though I've never used sc, I'm not a critic. Nor will I simply discount the 
scientific study because I have no bias one way or the other.

>The fact is and it was pointed out by Berry herself that the counts were small in both cases and the differences were statistically insignificant.

Yeah, I believe I mentioned that.


WVbeekeeper said:


> If I remember correctly, in the video with
> Jennifer Berry's
> presentation http://www.heartlandbees.com/berry2007.htmthat
> was that the number of extra bees was not very significant.


>That means the differences between the two were within the margin of error for the counting procedures, so in reality absolutely no conclusions can be drawn from the difference in the magnitude of the numbers.

Read this post; http://208.69.121.208/forums/showthread.php?t=215123
You can discount the study if you wish, or as Jim would say, "Pose and 
posture all you want," but as far as I see it so far until another study is 
published, the proof is in the pudding.

>Don't get me wrong, I am not convinced that sc is the "cure all" that some claim it to be.

I'm sorry, but up until now I thought you were Pro-Small Cell all the way!!!
Until someone finds the silver bullet, it seems that we will continue to debate
and lecture one another on our own ideas based on personal observations.

>I like the smaller bees (and more of them) because I am in AHB territory. Since AHB use small cells naturally, I feel that by using small cell on my bees it may just put them on a little more equal footing with the AHB and perhaps help them to out compete them. I have no evidence of this, but it seems somewhat logical to me.

You may be on to something there. It seems that other peoples' observations 
of SC bees vs. varroa is that they can handle them better, maybe because 
they are getting down to their level. It makes perfect sense that a smaller 
drone is more able to compete with an African drone when chasing a queen 
during her maiden flight. A smaller drone would be more aerodynamic and 
could possibly actually compete with the African drone though the smaller 
size and the physiological differences may be statistically insignificant.


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## MichaelW (Jun 1, 2005)

>Why does small cell deter varoa?

Any answer as to 'why' would be purely speculation as there are no studies by researchers or individuals that look at the 'why'. There is also no good study from individuals, and certainly not researchers, that say that it even works at all. There are however, beekeepers that use small cell and don't treat with chemicals, thats a clear fact. If its a cause and effect relationship is still up in the air as far as many unbiased beekeepers are concerned.


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## kirk-o (Feb 2, 2007)

The wild bees are booming in Los Angeles.I observed the same in Arizona last spring.And I mean Booming
kirk


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## Gene Weitzel (Dec 6, 2005)

WVbeekeeper said:


> >The fact is and it was pointed out by Berry herself that the counts were small in both cases and the differences were statistically insignificant.
> 
> Yeah, I believe I mentioned that.


I should have made it clear that I was talking about the mite counts and not the hive population. There was no statistically significant difference between the mite counts of the sc vs lc hives. In both cases the mite counts were quite low and the differences were with in the margin of error.

I have already read the "discounting scientific studies" thread and was unimpressed.

I am not discounting this study, based on what I know about the study (which is not a whole lot since I have not seen a write up, only viewed the tape) it left me with a lot of questions and no answers. My take on it is that all one can say is that it failed to validate the results of some earlier studies that seemed to show a correlation between a disruption in the varroa life cycle and small cells. I can say with certainty that anyone who thinks that the slightly larger mite counts observed in the sc hives during this study means that sc causes more varroa is completely mistaken and obviously has no experience interpreting the statistics generated by the study and equating that to a scientific conclusion. Personally, I must reserve final judgment until after I have access to the write up and can compare the methodology with the previous studies. I guess what I am trying to say is that I am uncomfortable drawing any conclusions either way about sc based on viewing a tape of a presentation made about a study of which I do not have access to the detailed data. That does not mean that I am a "dyed in the wool" sc proponent either. As I said before, I am not convinced that sc is a "cure all" as far as varroa is concerned. In fact, I would be surprised if it was that simple. There does seem to be some supporting evidence (both anecdotally and based on previous studies) that it could be a positive factor, but I personally believe that the bees themselves probably are a larger factor. 

One other fact that bothers me about all the studies I have seen is that no attempt is made to identify which phenotype of varroa are being observed. There are three phenotypes of varroa destructor, two of which will infest EHB. One of those two is much more virulent than the other, so it seems to me that mite phenotype is a factor that cannot be ignored in any study.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>another question is why are wild colonys disappearing when they are on natural cell?

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesnaturalcell.htm#feralbees

>They simply live longer
and this will cause more bees to be in the hive. Even if they live just 2 days
longer this will be 3000-4000 more bees in the colony. 

And they emerge two days sooner...

>If you use small cell starter strips, will the bees draw all small cells on that frame or will they switch to natural size?

No matter what size starter strips you use, the bees will draw smaller cells.


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## peggjam (Mar 4, 2005)

allrawpaul said:


> another question is why are wild colonys disappearing when they are on natural cell?


 
I have not noticed this at all. I think we have more than we did 5 years ago. Also, wild colonys are not always "wild", meaning if they swarmed from a hive into a previously unoccupied nest, they may or may not draw sc comb. Or, if they do enter a nest that was occupied in the past, the comb drawn by the previous tennets may not have been drawn as sc comb. So...... just by virtue of being in an unmanaged nest, doesn't mean they are on sc comb. Of course, it also doesn't mean their're not either. Is everyone confused yet..........


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## naturebee (Dec 25, 2004)

Oldbee said:


> Ten to fifteen years isn't that long a time for some kind of hygienic/resistant honeybee to,.........."evolve"?.......survive, considering how devastating varroa is.


Hygienic behavior (first described by Park in 1937) was thought to be a 
mechanism against brood disease such as foulbrood. This trait likely 
exists in populations of honeybees already and need not be evolved.
Marla Spivak (1996) has demonstrated this when she found the trait to 
be present in 10% of the domestic population of honeybees that have
NEVER been selected for the trait. IMO, 10 years is sufficient time to 
develop hygienic behavior trait which was at the time likly present in 
the surviving populations of feral bees. 

Organisms can evolve rapidly 
the best known example is in Darwin’s finches:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1688507.htm

Best Wishes,
Joe


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Guys,

>Would this behavior be due to small cell only or would it be due to a combination of small cell and hygienic bees?

I'd looked for VHS for a decade before it was 'discovered' without success. But I've put just about every US commercially available bee on small cell and they have all demonstrated it.

And when I put small cell bees that had survived without treatment on clean, large cell comb. None of those same bees demonstrated it. And they would have all succumbed to the mites without treatment. See http://bwrangler.litarium.com/un-regressed-bees/

>The small cell bees are smaller, which makes that varroa mites larger relative to the bee's size...

The cell size versus bee size issue is not as simple as it seems. Bees rear different size bees depending on more factors than just cell size. It a seasonal phenomena which mirrors the type of cell sizes, in a natural broodnest, that are available for rearing brood during the season. And these different sized bees are produced even when the bees are restricted to a single cell size whether large or small. See:http://bwrangler.litarium.com/seasonal-bee-size/

A small cell queen will actually prefer to lay in larger sized comb during midsummer.

>...why are wild colonys disappearing when they are on natural cell?

Some would dispute that statement. In Wyoming, there are few to none wild colonies. So, I don't know about their disappearance by experience.

But I do know that natural comb alone, isn't sufficient to save all colonies from mites. I've measured cell size in tbh comb with various comb heights. Bees start comb with a very uniform cell size and gradually taper it to small cell size at the bottom of the comb. Shorter comb truncates the process with much less small cell sized comb drawn out. It seems that some cavity shapes would enhance survival.

I've looked at a broodnest with some extremely short comb less than 5" tall. Only a single small piece had any small cell size. And the typical brood structure was absent.

Another fact is bee resistance to the mite transmitted viruses. I haven't had any small cell hive perish when on small cell comb. But I have had a hive or two spit out a few bees with Milky and DWF symptoms.

>If you use small cell starter strips, will the bees draw all small cells on that frame or will they switch to natural size? 

I've actually measured this and posted the results here. All races of bees I've tested start the first row of cells just about the same size. Then, within a couple of rows, they quickly change the cell size to suit their needs.

When a small cell starter strip is inserted between natural comb, where the bees are actively drawing out small cell sizes, the bees ignore the small cell size starter strip and quickly enlarge cell size to follow their natural propensities. See: http://bwrangler.litarium.com/starter-strips/

All of my bees have prospered when on small cell comb. But as comb drawing, virus tolerance and VHS are genetic propensities, some bees will have a combination of traits that make it much easier to get them there. Using a natural comb focus rather than small cell also makes it easier.

Some thoughts.

Regards
Dennis


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## allrawpaul (Jun 7, 2004)

Dennis, if that is the case, Deep frames are preferable to mediums, and jumbos would be best, since the farther down you go, the more small cells are built? Thanks for all the great information!


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Allrawpaul and Everyone,

If I remember correctly, I would start to see 4.9mm size comb about 7" below the top bar. 

Regards
Dennis


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