# Ranting on small cell research



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I have found most of the small cell research that is done very frustrating. The researchers never seem to have any understanding of the concept and don't apply it appropriately and make erroneous assumptions about the future generations without any research to back it up.

Examples:
http://www.csl.gov.uk/prodserv/cons/bee/varroa/ModellingBiologicalApproaches.pdf 

Heres some research, not all of it useless, but there are so many assumption. For instance the statement that Africanized bees usually have a post-capping period 20 hrs shorter than European bees (Rosenkranz 1999) Is comparing natural sized Afracanized bees on natural sized cells in a tropical climate to unnaturally enlarged European bees on unnaturally enlarged comb in a non-tropical climate. Then when someone finally gets around to comparing unnaturally enlarged European bees in a tropical climate to natural sized Africanized bees in a tropical climate there is only 8 hrs difference. My question, and I think the only relevant question, is what is the difference if both are natural sized bees on natural sized comb in the same climate?

The answer to the questions are not in comparing apples to oranges but apples to apples.

Heres some more useless research:
http://www.algonet.se/~beeman/research/cell.htm http://www.bee-l.com/biobeefiles/pav/scstudy.htm 

In both of these they took enlarged European bees and offered them various sized foundation (made into kind of a crazy quilt) and then after the comb was capped they opened it and counted mites. From everything anyone knows about mites and any theory put forth by people using small cell this would be expected to fail on all levels.

1.	Enlarged honey bees are not going to properly draw small cell comb.
2.	The only size being purported by anyone as being useful was thrown out of the study anyway.
3.	Even if you used naturally sized bees to do this experiment (which would be the only correct way to do this based on the theory of small cell research so far) Im not nearly so interested if there are mites in the cells as I am whether or not they can reproduce. It is possible that they wont reproduce because they cant find each other or because the amount of time to reproduce is shortened in small cells. They did not even attempt to find the answer to this question.

I have also found research on what is the natural size of European honey bee worker comb and invariably they will take enlarged bees, let them build comb without foundation, measure it and announce that the natural size is about 5.1mm or 5.2mm. Yes! The first generation! What about the next one?

Do these people live in a vacumn? The research on honey bee size and cell size has been done and documented since the late 1800's. Do they bother to understand a theory before they try to disprove it?

I wish I could understand what they are thinking.

I also found a research project, which I'm having trouble finding again, where they proved that it DID interfere with the mites reproducing, but the researchers speculated (not a very scientifc thing to do in your conclusion) that subsequent generations on small cell would have smaller larvae and therfore the effect would only be temporary. Why? The genetics hasn't changed. I think they are mistakenly thinking that evolution takes place in one or two or five generations. Since no one has ever observed evolution happening in thousands of generations, this is an absurd assumption. IF evolution occures at all, it happens over millions of generations.

Thanks for letting me vent my frustration.


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## Clayton (Dec 8, 2000)

Hi Micheal,

You seen the New Zealand research?

It shows zero understanding.


Clay


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Yes I did. You are correct. Why bother to do an experiment on an idea you have no understanding of?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

This is like a guy with a 1/4" nut and a 3/4" bolt. The problem is that the bolt doesn't fit.

Some lady comes along and tries smaller and smaller bolts until she find that a 1/4" bolt fits the 1/4" nut and says that the problem is that the bolt is too large.

The Boltologists (all with doctorate degrees in Boltology) of course question this result mostly because the lady is not a Boltologist (the fact that she is a mechanic and deals with bolts every day is irrelevant). So the Boltologists decide to try a "scientific experiment" with the original 1/4" nut, a 3/4" bolt (control because this is the size everyone has) a 5/8" bolt, a 1/2" bolt and a 3/8" bolt. After trying these three subsequently smaller bolts on the 1/4" nut the researchers announce their conclusion that they tried subsequently smaller bolts and noticed no improvement in making it fit. Therefore smaller bolts is not the answer to the problem and the worshipers of Science all bow down and quote this conclusion as gospel.


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