# Small Cell impact - Correlation or Causation?



## wfarler (Jul 9, 2003)

I am a beekeeper in North Texas and have been experimenting with small cell and treatment free beekeeping for a number of years. After a hiatus of about 5 years I returned to beekeeping. However, I kept a small apiary during that time on my acreage. Happily I do have one survivor hive after those 5 years of near total neglect. I occasionally fed during our drought years but had not opened the surviving hive for 5 years now.

Part of returning to beekeeping I wanted to catch up on what progress has been made recently to the science and understanding of treatment free beekeeping. I have used HSC in my operation and had a half case of Dadant 4.9 wax on the shelf. I thought better get set back up right. 

I thought surely I need to move everything to small cell and watching various presentations on you tube and the Oracle Organic supported this. 

I have spent quit a bit of time reading the research. I will say most all of the cell size research is flawed, putting bees on small cell comb and testing for 2 months, plastic small cell vs. wax controls, etc. I found a non-academic study over 3 years done by a beekeeping association back east - in it small cell wax was a miserable failure. What struck me was the control and test hives were the same stock. The one study that seemed pretty rigorous was the Seeley Griffin study in 2011. It looked pretty rigorous although there were some potential differences between the small cell and controls. The results asserted that cell size was not affecting varroa. They looked at emergence - no difference. Mite loads - no difference.

This has really puzzled me. The bespoke methods and testimonials from Organic Beekeepers is very strongly in favor of small cell. A number of reasons have been hypothesized such as emergence time, worker/drone relationships, pheromone strength, etc.

But what I have not seen from the organic work is a really good approach to separating out the effects of genetics from cell size. D. Lusby makes no attempt to separate the two as she strongly believes they go hand in hand, that's cool she has had a lot of success and I won't argue with success, Other similarly report success. 

What I find troubling in the treatment free community is no one is really working to separate out the genetics vs. environmental factors. When I go back and reread Lusby's writings it is evident that the cell size could POSSIBLY not have any causation on the varroa control just correlation because it was done in tandem with other actions. It is not uncommon for us as humans to associate an observation with causation when it really is just coincidence or mere correlation.

Take for example a number of treatment free practices that accompany small cell beekeeping and could very well account for the reasons that varroa control is better with treatment free methods.

Wild and/or survivor stock - 
natural selection for hygienic behavior, 
local adaptation leading to stronger hives better able to combat infestation 
reduction in the number of virus and disease spores being brought in from the outside by not buying bees from commercial producers all leading to stronger hives better able to combat mites, 
genetic predisposition for earlier emergence times - it is well know different strains of honeybee vary by the number of hours to emergence of workers and queens.
genetic differences in pheromone levels that are used by varroa to select egg laying sites within the hive

Feeding practices - PH and nutritional quality, healthier hives could be combating mites better

Foundationless and/or using your own wax - lots of proven research on pesticide/fungicide contamination not just from hive treatment but being brought in by the bees from contaminated fields/environmental load. Contamination leads to weaker hives unable to combat mites or their vectors. We also know bees will draw wax before plastic and there is some suggestion they winter better on wax than plastic.

Beekeeping practices - making splits, broodnest interruption all leading to lower mite loads in the apiary overall thus less varroa pressure on hives in that apiary. There is a fair amount of evidence suggesting that non-small cell beekeepers are having positive results with these practices (once again correlation vs. causation).

I don't see where any of these factors is dependant on cell size and I see where there could be a strong possibility that except for the foundationless point cell size could be irrelevant.

Given the high degree of investment that has been made by a number of the treatment free beekeeping community members in small cell size I could see where it might be hard to accept that this is not a causative factor. Lusby herself says 'you have to do it all' (referring to the stock and practices as well as SC) which brings me to ask the question 'what if you do it all except cell size?'.

Given the cost and challenges of moving to SC I think it is worth asking the question. There have been a lot of investment made in changing equipment, making presses and buying mills, buying special plastic (not cheap) so all of that poses a hurdle for folks to jump over before analyzing this in an objective manner.

So I am not attacking small cell folks - I use it myself. I have a vested economic interest in small cell as I sell small cell NUC's for a premium price. I am not questioning that a lot of folks who have gone to small cell are successful at going treatment free. I am just asking the question why is it so and is cell size causation or just correlation?

I 100% believe that wax contamination is an important problem to deal with, organic acids have an incremental harm on bees, genetic selection has a huge impact on hygienic behaviour, genetic make up has an impact on emergence time (Scutella aka. African bees emerge faster), beekeeping practices have an impact on varroa (walk away splits, feeding, screened bottom boards, ventilation, supering, brood nest size, etc.) and the treatment free and organic beeks have led the way in trying to figure out how to succeed. Nothing shows more commitment than putting your entire operation at risk to go cold turkey on treatment like so many have painfully but successfully done.

I am only asking is SC correlation or causation? Feel free to argue.


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## MartinW (Feb 28, 2015)

“all models are wrong, but some are useful” attributed to George Box.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

I can't argue this because my bees survive just fine on small cell and they do just as well on large cell. I prefer small cell for a few reasons mostly associated with spring buildup.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>What I find troubling in the treatment free community is no one is really working to separate out the genetics vs. environmental factors.

I did them separately. I went to small cell and natural comb using commercial queens. Then I went to feral stock.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beessctheories.htm

>Take for example a number of treatment free practices that accompany small cell beekeeping and could very well account for the reasons that varroa control is better with treatment free methods.

Of course, nothing as complex as life is just one thing. I find package bees generally die, treated or not. Survivor stock (stock that was not treated and still survived) tends to survive, treated or not. And though Varroa is sometimes the issue often it is not the issue.

>Wild and/or survivor stock - 
natural selection for hygienic behavior, 

Yet the AHB and other survivor stock does not seem to do well on tests for hygienic behavior...

>Given the cost and challenges of moving to SC I think it is worth asking the question.

I have never understood what people think is the "cost"? If you follow what is currently being recommended as "standard practice" you would rotate out all your comb in five years. So in five years you would replace all your comb with small cell (or natural comb). If you do natural comb, it saved you the cost of the foundation. Where is the "cost"?

> There have been a lot of investment made in changing equipment, making presses and buying mills

Which I have not understood... why mill what the bees will make?


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## jbeshearse (Oct 7, 2009)

Michael Bush said:


> I have never understood what people think is the "cost"? If you follow what is currently being recommended as "standard practice" you would rotate out all your comb in five years. So in five years you would replace all your comb with small cell (or natural comb). If you do natural comb, it saved you the cost of the foundation. Where is the "cost"?


"recommended as "standard practice" this is a recommended practice that is probably followed by less tha 80% of current beekeepers and less than that in the commercial world. It is of dubious and unproven merit. Just because something is recommended does not make it necessary, desirable or beneficial.


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## wfarler (Jul 9, 2003)

Michael Bush said:


> >Yet the AHB and other survivor stock does not seem to do well on tests for hygienic behavior...


Thanks for your reply Michael. Enjoy your website. With AHB I was referring to their swarming and absconding behavior as what allows them to resist varroa and SHB. (Ellis JD, Hepburn HR. 2006). You are right they are not particularly hygienic. My key question is about correlation versus causation. If a baseball player always touches his ear and scratches his nose before he pitches, is striking out the batter caused by the ritual or just correlated with it?

As Seeley points out in his paper, the survivor stock in the wild is benefitting from higher swarming as a result of small hive spaces in tree cavities and not from a genetic advantage. (Loftus JC, Smith ML, Seeley TD (2016)) Haven't seen any research on survivor stock selection although there have been plenty of anecdotal reports written (not to say the research isn't out there - I just haven't ran across any).


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## wfarler (Jul 9, 2003)

jbeshearse said:


> "recommended as "standard practice" this is a recommended practice that is probably followed by less tha 80% of current beekeepers and less than that in the commercial world. It is of dubious and unproven merit. Just because something is recommended does not make it necessary, desirable or beneficial.


JB - we used to think it was hive treatments contaminating our broodcomb. Come to find out all of the pesticides coming in via nectar and pollen are seeping into the wax. AI Root tested the wax they were receiving to make foundation and found it had millions of parts per billion of pesticide and fungicide contamination. 

Some of the folks who rotate out their foundation are making their own - melt down the contaminated wax, roll it out and emboss it and put it back in. Helps but not as much as getting rid of it and having them draw their own or using plastic.


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