# small cell



## thebee

Has anyone not had good luck with small cell to control varroa?


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## Jeffzhear

thebee said:


> Has anyone not had good luck with small cell to control varroa?


The results aren't in yet for me. I have only a few hives regressed and most all others in the process. Many here swear by it...doing a search on past threads might get you your answer.


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## beemandan

Recent research suggests that small cell isn't effective in controlling varroa.


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## MichaelW

I'm doing a natural cell size experiment (not using foundation of any kind). see
http://acbeekeepers.org/
SARE link.

Nothing significant either way to report yet, but we have one year from spring to go.


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## BULLSEYE BILL

beemandan said:


> Recent research suggests that small cell isn't effective in controlling varroa.


I think that there is no real scientific bee research to be quoted yet. There is only one university study (the lady who studied under Keith Deleplane) that I am aware of and there has not been any results cited yet other than it looks promising. (That is what Keith told me last year.)

It seems that the people making claims here on BS that have good results are the ones that not only use small cell but have other commonalities like using soft or NO treatments, IPM, etc. Surely the management style of beekeepers has a greater impact on the survivability of their bees, but does it come down to any one aspect? I think not. It comes down to our philosophy, management style, and luck.


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## Bizzybee

Bill I believe there was a post made not to long ago with Jennifers report to date on the SC Study underway at UGA. And if memory serves me, which can often be questionable, what was said was that there are more bees in the SC hives while the inverse is true of the LC hives. And that the mite loads followed the number of bees. So it seemed to be a wash. There was no significant evidence that would suggest that there was any advantage gained by the use of SC.

Anyone please jump in here and correct any part or all of what I've said. But I believe this to be pretty much the case. They do still have a little way to go to complete the study, so I wouldn't be to quick to jump to conclusions just yet. But as beeman said, it doesn't look hopeful.


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## beemandan

BULLSEYE BILL said:


> I think that there is no real scientific bee research to be quoted yet. There is only one university study (the lady who studied under Keith Deleplane) that I am aware of and there has not been any results cited yet other than it looks promising. (That is what Keith told me last year.)


I'm pretty sure that her study meets any standards of being 'real scientific bee research'. Jennifer Berry, the 'lady' you're referring to, has presented her results at EAS as well as several state beekeeper's meetings. As Biz pointed out, in her study the small cell colonies did indeed have more bees on average than the regular cell. They also had more mites. 

Although only one study, as Bullseye indicates, it still strongly suggests that small cell isn't effective in controlling varroa.


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## Michael Bush

>Recent research suggests that small cell isn't effective in controlling varroa.

So far Jennifer Berry's study is not completed, but it has shown no statistical difference, but it has only been going a year and none of the hives have any significant mite load. The proof is in the pudding. Let's see what it looks like in another year or two or three. Besides, mite counts aren't the real issue. Survival is.

What I do know is with small cell I can't even find one mite on my trays to show people when I have a field day at my beeyard and I haven't treated any of them at all since 2003 and some of them since 2001. And in the spring the inspector can't either:

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


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## Moonshae

I'd be more interested in actual results than what research has to say. Most research isn't conducted in the way that mirrors actual practice. If small cell works as part of IPM, great. If people can control varroa on large cell with IPM, great. Reasearch is conducted to answer a question, not to solve a problem.

I'd be more interested in the impact of the mites than the numbers. If small cell allows hives to have more mites without affecting their viability, then the mite count isn't relevant. We're all interested in production and survival. If hives could do both well with a billion mites, we wouldn't care...it's the impact of the mites on these two factors that generate all the concern.

If something allows the bees to go on with business as usual regardless of the mite count, IMHO, that's effective.


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## BULLSEYE BILL

beemandan said:


> I'm pretty sure that her study meets any standards of being 'real scientific bee research'. Jennifer Berry, the 'lady' you're referring to, has presented her results at EAS as well as several state beekeeper's meetings. As Biz pointed out, in her study the small cell colonies did indeed have more bees on average than the regular cell. They also had more mites.
> 
> Although only one study, as Bullseye indicates, it still strongly suggests that small cell isn't effective in controlling varroa.


I did not mean to infer that she was not preforming "real scientific bee research". I meant that I did not think that there was any results to be quoted yet as it is too early in her study to have any real results to make a conclusion from. I doubt that her study is completed or that her report at EAS was a conclusion to the study, most likely she was stating some observations at this point. Surely the study will take a few years at best to make any real conclusions.

I stand on my beliefs that some combination of management, cell size, IPM, and NO treatments are leading to hives that can live with some level of mites.

It was refreshing to hear Dr. Skip Taylor at the Kansas Honey Producers meeting last week tell the members that we have to get off the chemical treatment bandwagon and let nature solve our mite problems.


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## MichaelW

At HAS Jennifer Berry reported that the UGA study is complete. The report is the conclusion of the study. However she did say that they wouldn't make any conclusions like, "it dosen't work". She just reported what they did and what they found, which was a one year study that showed no significant difference in mite counts. They may have another study in the works, but I don't know.


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## MichaelW

Moonshae said:


> If something allows the bees to go on with business as usual regardless of the mite count, IMHO, that's effective.


Its pretty unlikely that bees are going to produce with high might counts. They might barely survive, but they are going to be weak, easy to kill by other pests&diseases, and are not going to produce. 

Mite counts are a good way to measure treatment (small cell etc.) effects. For the cited study they count mites that fell, mites inside capped brood, and mites on worker bees with an alcohol wash.

If small cell works in IPM, then it should have some "measureable" effect on mite numbers. It dosen't have to be good enough to save hives without the other factors susch as soft treatments, etc. but it should still have a measuerable effect on its own. Such as screened bottom boards.


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## BULLSEYE BILL

MichaelW said:


> At HAS Jennifer Berry reported that the UGA study is complete. The report is the conclusion of the study. However she did say that they wouldn't make any conclusions like, "it dosen't work". She just reported what they did and what they found, which was a one year study that showed no significant difference in mite counts. They may have another study in the works, but I don't know.


That is disappointing.  

Most splits and swarms can survive a year or two without too much of a mite load, I am amazed that they think that a one year study could produce any meaningful conclusions.


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## TwT

BULLSEYE BILL said:


> That is disappointing.
> 
> Most splits and swarms can survive a year or two without too much of a mite load, I am amazed that they think that a one year study could produce any meaningful conclusions.


the hives they studied came from "Billy Bob" (Bill Owens) , I think most if not all were over a year old already... but BB could answer that better.. I think some of the bee's in the hives was bee's they were working with already (hygienic bee's), BB works with UGA a good bit..


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## beemandan

BULLSEYE BILL said:


> That is disappointing.
> 
> I am amazed that they think that a one year study could produce any meaningful conclusions.


For measuring long term survival, you would be correct. For relative mite infestations, several brood cycles should be sufficient to determine if there is any difference. A year is plenty long enough.

Believe me, I am as disappointed as anyone. But the data are clear. Any beek plannig a conversion to small cell should consider the results of this study, in my opinion.


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## Bizzybee

I have to agree, but keeping an open mind hopefully!

The bees were already regressed by Bill before they moved the to the beelab for study. So in my mind, if the question at hand is "whether or not small cell will reduce mite loads" not whether the bees will become more resistant to the mites over time. Then how long does it take to see the mites diminish? It's not the bees that need to overcome some change other than the fact that they start producing the small cell comb. Once that is accomplished, then the rest of the problem is that the mites will not be able to mature before the bees hatch in the smaller cell as it has been suggested. The issue of small cell comb as I see it, is a device not so much a behavior.

Michael B, I understand your drop in mite counts over time. I'll jump right in there with you in the need for the absence of treatment and more emphasis being put toward selection. I absolutely believe you when you say there are fewer mites. But can you say that given you have followed these practices, that small or natural cell has been a contributing factor to the success? I ask this in pure curiosity, do you still have any bees on "large" cell as I refer to it, that have undergone the same practice?


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## Bizzybee

"For measuring long term survival, you would be correct. For relative mite infestations, several brood cycles should be sufficient to determine if there is any difference. A year is plenty long enough."

Oops, think I kinda said what you already had Dan. Shoulda paid better attention to your post! Sorry!


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## Michael Bush

>If small cell works in IPM, then it should have some "measureable" effect on mite numbers. It dosen't have to be good enough to save hives without the other factors susch as soft treatments, etc. but it should still have a measuerable effect on its own. Such as screened bottom boards.

With drifting and having all of them (large and small cell) in the same yard there may not be as much difference as you might think as drifting drones even out the mite populations throughout the beeyard.

http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Organicbeekeepers/message/37423

>Michael B, I understand your drop in mite counts over time. I'll jump right in there with you in the need for the absence of treatment and more emphasis being put toward selection. I absolutely believe you when you say there are fewer mites. But can you say that given you have followed these practices, that small or natural cell has been a contributing factor to the success?

I (and Barry and BWranger and others) have seen that drop in mite levels when still keeping the same genetics on simple commercial queens of common varieties of bees. But I think selection can help in many ways and so I have moved to feral survivors. That's as much as anything because they are acclimatized to my area.

> I ask this in pure curiosity, do you still have any bees on "large" cell as I refer to it, that have undergone the same practice?

I end up with some large cell bees from time to time. I regress them as quickly as I can. So I have none for any period of time, no.

I don't think you can say only one thing is involved. Certainly if you quit treating you are also breeding Varroa mites that are more adapted to the bees as well as breeding bees that are more adapted to the mites.

As long as you treat you keep breeding super mites and weak bees.


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## MichaelW

beemandan said:


> But the data are clear. Any beek plannig a conversion to small cell should consider the results of this study, in my opinion.


I'll agree with that whole heartedly, but thats not to say the issue isn't still worth serious, further looks and studies. I just wouldn't drop a few, multiple thousand dollars into converting a bee operation to small cell at this point in time. More comparisons with both large cell and small cell bees in the same yard needs to be done. Thats the main problem with only looking at the people that are successful at small cell beekeeping, is that they don't do the same things with large cell bees and see if that works. Why would they though when they are doing something that works. They could however apply for funding for the motivation to run comparisons.

Sorry Michael, I simply don't buy that drift evens out the mite numbers in yards. There are studies looking directly at drift and show that it doesn't have a big effect on mite numbers. I can find that and send it to you if requested. There are also studies that look at treatments that show you have different, significant levels of mites in different hives in the same yard due to treatments. I've also seen a big variety of mite numbers in my yard, not as part of any study, just observing the effect of breaks in brood cycle.


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## Mike Gillmore

beemandan said:


> Jennifer Berry, the 'lady' you're referring to, has presented her results at EAS as well as several state beekeeper's meetings.


Has anyone had the opportunity to look at the specific mite count numbers in her study? I'm just curious what range they fall into.


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## drobbins

a valid question Mike
if all hives had low mite counts then the study wouldn't seem to tell much
the results look discouraging for SC, but you have to ask "why do they disagree with the experiences that people using SC have had?"
perhaps the ultimate data we want is survivability, not mite counts
just a thought
I have no experience with "life sciences" type experiments but it seems to me that with so many variables in play it's really the end results that count 

Dave


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## NeilV

*My rambling thoughts*

As I said on another recent post, my personal theory/suspicion is that people who have been successful with small cell have been breeding better bees and/or mites, since they do not treat. Small cell could also have something to do with it. However, I do not think that specific incidents of people on small cell having few or no mites means that small cell is the cause of the low mite counts.

I do want to stress that I am a first year beekeeper, and my theories are just theories.

Also, I started out on small cell this year, and I ordered small cell bees. Last time I did 24 hour mite counts (in August) I had only one dead mite in each hive. In my own case, I'm not sure to what extent the small cell, genetics, luck or the fact that these are new hives are the cause. I have observed hygenic behavior in these bees earlier in the year. Also, when I had a disease issue, the queens stopped brood rearing altogether for a couple of weeks. So I do think that there is a genetic component. Whatever the cause, I like the fact that I did not have mites. 

On the other hand, I was not otherwise thrilled with the hives, which had slow growth and did not draw new comb very well. I'm not sure whether that is the downside of hygenic behavior or is a totally unrelated problem. We did have some very rainy weather during the time that bees should have been making lots of wax. There were lots of beekeepers who had hives with slow growth, which they blame on the weather. However, if I find over the long term that hygenic and/or small cell bees mean unproductive bees, then I figure that I would be better getting normal old Italians and treating with Thymol or Formic Acid.

In short, I don't really know what to think at this point in my beekeeping. Based upon what I read on these forums, I think these are questions that befuddle a lot of us. Some people have definite opinions, so maybe not everyone's befuddled. Problem is, the firm believers in certain philosophies disagree. with each other. 

My bottom line for anybody who is starting out in beekeeping is this -- don't let this subject worry you to much or think that you have to know the answers to these issues. I'm not sure anybody has the answers, but there's plenty of people who have figured out ways to deal with varroa. Just get a plan and monitor for mites.

I think it would be interesting if Michael Bush would take a group of hives to a location where they are segregated from his other hives, put them on standard foundation and see what happens. (I do not want to be responsible for the mite explosions that might happen, but even then he would have the satisfaction of saying "I told ya so.") Maybe I'll buy some of his queens and and put them on standard foundation. (If he's willing to sacrifice those genetics them by selling them to me.) 

ndvan


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## Barry

"We had significantly more bees in small cell than we did in regular cell at the end of the experiment."

Jennifer Berry


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## BjornBee

Barry,
And as soon as she tells me what the starting numbers were, the pattern or growth rate perhaps plotted on a chart, and the final numbers, it may actually mean something to me. Right now its a casual observation with no data, no reasoning, and no other suggestions. I would not read into too deeply.

Tests that want to make anything of numbers or observations like this is easy to do. I spent long hours counting frames of brood and percentages of utilized frames in hundreds of hives with testing such as this. The variables of why one hive has more bees than the next include many things to consider. But if the test was not specifically set up to take these variables into account and observe how one hive progresses over another, the data means little. I'm not saying her tests are not valid. Just putting more meaning into this one observation is invalid.

Besides, I heard for years that smallcell was for mite control. Don't go changing mid-stream now. Mite control is very questionable. So will that be the battle cry now..."smallcell means more bees"? 

What does more bees mean anyways? Bees years ago were bred to be bigger for larger honey yields. So will it take a larger amount of smallcell bees to bring in the same amount of nectar than larger bees? Seems like a wash on that one.

So mites control is questionable. Honey production is not tested. But yes, "We breed more bees with smallcell" can be claimed. Well Duh! I didn't need this test to show me something I already knew. And anyone giving any thought as to cluster warmth, cells per square inch, and other factors could very easily come to the same observation, even if it were in their heads.

Now, let me go look at some of my smallcell hives.....


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## stangardener

drobbins said:


> perhaps the ultimate data we want is survivability, not mite counts
> 
> survivability is where my interest lies.


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## beemandan

stangardener said:


> survivability is where my interest lies.


The arrival of Africanized bees should put a smile on your face.


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## Bizzybee

Who said that????


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## Barry

BjornBee said:


> Right now its a casual observation with no data, no reasoning, and no other suggestions. I would not read into too deeply.


Bjorn, Now that I've seen your mug, I must readjust my mind, but now it's even more difficult because your twin brother is my neighbor.  Yikes, you two are amazingly alike. BTW, I like my neighbor and get along well with him.

Okay, regarding a deep look into the numbers. I'm not jumping off the bridge over this one. I do find it interesting that in spite of the results showing little difference between the large and small cell bees in the mite department, SC bees had a "significant" larger bee population in the end. I suspect it may be nothing more than SC having more cells in the hive, but what effect might this have on the overall health and survivability of the colony?

Those of us who have been using SC for many years, know for ourselves the different dynamics that take place with our bees, unlike that of our LC bees. The data may mean little, but it is yet another observed confirmation of things all of us on SC see. There is no need to make more out of it. At least for me.



> Besides, I heard for years that smallcell was for mite control. Don't go changing mid-stream now. Mite control is very questionable. So will that be the battle cry now..."smallcell means more bees"?


I detect a bit of sarcasm here. I stopped giving the battle cry years ago. Those who are interested will be self motivated to make the change. Once I converted over and didn't have to do any sort of treating, my focus changed. I'll let others hash out the debate as to the why questions while I enjoy my bees.



> What does more bees mean anyways?


Good question.



> Bees years ago were bred to be bigger for larger honey yields.


And that flopped.



> Well Duh! I didn't need this test to show me something I already knew.


Yes, there is a "duh" factor, but I'm thinking beyond that and my experience with SC gives me a gut feeling there is more to this.

- Barry


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## WVbeekeeper

>SC bees had a "significant" larger bee population in the end. I suspect it may be nothing more than SC having more cells in the hive, but what effect might this have on the overall health and survivability of the colony?

I don't think that having more cells in hive will speed the queen up any when she lays her eggs. The reason that there is more bees in a SC colony could be that the littler bees don't wear their bodies out as quickly as the bigger bees so they live longer. Remember Ralph Waldo Emerson and all the other famous "giants". They were bigger people, but by being bigger they had more of a strain on their bodies and died at an earlier age than normal people. SC makes bees more "normal' or closer to their natural size as they should be. Just throwing a hypothesis out there.


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## BjornBee

Barry,
I guess what bothers me about this conversation is the lack of responses as rebuttals to J. Berry. I heard for years that smallcell showed reduced mite levels and that those with side by side studies (informal as they may be), mites were drastically reduced.

But what were left with is from what I see is rationalization at its best. I've heard that the mite levels are similar due to "drift". Anyone breeding or doing thousands of sugar rolls as I have done, See's that this is not true in any stretch of the imagination. I have documentation of yards where even number hives are one type, and odd numbers hives are another. And the numbers go high, low, high, low, high, low, throughout the yard.

Now were on too.."We will have to give it a few years". Seems like those making smallcell claims of past, did not wait that long before commenting and making claims. Seems some of that chatter all happened within a year.

So now were left with, "As long as my bees survive, that's all the proof I need". Doesn't take long for jumping from one wagon to another it seems. So one has smallcell, has hives survive, and they attribute it to smallcell. What about all those hives that have survived without being on smallcell? I got plenty of them. But I don't suggest its my use of one thing or another. Why? Because I have seen smallcell bees do good, and smallcell do bad. The same can be seen from regular sized bees on standard comb.

I know we could go round and round on this. I'm just amazed how fast the whole "small cell has less mites" has been brushed aside and I don't hear as much as a peep from the followers. One little study and its "lets change the subject" and not get to worried about this. After all it must be something else! The whole basis of smallcell was mite reduction. So much for that!

I have played around with smallcell and have smallcell hives. I also had the luxury of knowing and inspecting several others who have smallcell hives. And from what I have seen, its a whole lot of hype. Or at least the reasoning and explanation is not as its been given thus far. Of course its something else. I think the same is true for those making the same claims about this line of bees or that line of bees. Its something else beyond this one point.

At the end of the day, I'm still surprised how fast one little study has shoved the claims so many made, off onto the back burner. I would of expected someone to refutiate the comments, Say she "crazy" and does not know what she is doing, or at least find something to counter the suggestions she has made. But were left with "its something else", and although previously shouted from the highest peaks that mites were low or seen as being much lower then standard hives when using smallcell, we now hear "its not the mites that matter, its whether they survive".

I personally have spoke to others about smallcell. And not everyone who has smallcell thinks as some do on this board about the claims that were previously made. I would never call them out. But I think as we move forward, you will begin to hear others who have less than positive results with smallcell.

BTW Barry, That other guy is my twin! He's the good one.....


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## Michael Bush

I'm not sure what kind of response anyone expects. I didn't treat my bees for years (decades actually) with no problems until the Varroa turned up and then they would ALL die, obviously from Varroa, when I didn't treat. I went to small cell and I never saw another loss that I could attribute to Varroa. Sure there were occasional hives that went queenless and failed and the typical losses of hives that were marginal going into a hard winter, but I never had any losses from that point on that I would say were Varroa and I have trouble finding any Varroa now. I started out just regressing commercial bees and saw the mite problems disappear. So whatever the study comes up with, I have no intentions of going back to losing all my bees every other year. I much prefer the enjoyment I get from just keeping bees.


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## BjornBee

MB,
"regressed, and mite problems disappear".

Sounds so good. But don't forget the many comments made by you over the years that included losing hives while regressing, perhaps taking several years. And then there is the breeding from survivors along the way. Throw in some ferals and other stock along the way. And in the end, I'm sure your bees were different from when you started.

But I guess "regressed, and mite problems disappear" sounds better. Never mind that its a subtle change from "mites went away" to "mite problems went away (disappear)". I'm sure many will making that change in future comments. 

At least we have stopped openly commenting that smallcell takes care of everything under the sun to include afb, etc.

The memories are many.....


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## Barry

BjornBee said:


> I heard for years that smallcell showed reduced mite levels and that those with side by side studies (informal as they may be), mites were drastically reduced.


I don't think I have ever said this as I've never counted mites. Others may have, but what I have said is that the SC bees "handled" the mites fine by themselves, without treatments. I have never seen mites on the bees or in the comb since converting, but that doesn't mean they aren't there.



> Because I have seen smallcell bees do good, and smallcell do bad. The same can be seen from regular sized bees on standard comb.


Hmmm, I've not seen this to be true for myself. LC bees without some form of treatment haven't survived.

- Barry


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## BjornBee

Barry,
Maybe you didn't mention it. But many others did. Why do you think so many eyebrows went up when J. Berry made her comments. Because that's what people didn't expect, and its certainly not what many had stated. She didn't come out and make a comment about "handling" mites, she came out and commented on mite "levels".

This has evolved from the whole "shorter" capped cell time, and the whole notion that mites bred fewer mites in cells on smallcell comb. that's whats been stated over and over. It may not of been Barry, but come on....the basis of claims about smallcell and mites came down to capping time, fewer mites, and claims of superior mite levels as compared to standard cell bees. That's what the whole thing was about. You can step sideways and suggest other "may have", but we all know that this was the story all along. Fewer mites on smallcell. And for anyone questioning that, it was always suppressed due to no good studies.


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## iddee

>>>>Hmmm, I've not seen this to be true for myself. LC bees without some form of treatment haven't survived.<<<<

I guess I have to jump in here. You are invited to come see the 5 year old hive I was given by a friend who lost 30 + hives in the early 90's to mites. In fact, he lost all his hives except one. Being an old country boy who had never studied bees, just owned and robbed them, he never treated for anything. His one hive swarmed, the swarm swarmed, etc. When I got into bees again in 2002, he gave me a swarm off one of his 5 hives. I have never treated it or any of the resulting hives I got from it. Neither him nor I have used sc. That 5 year old hive at this time has 2 deeps and 2 mediums and I cannot lift it to see how much it weighs. I can lift 150 lb.
I have also received nothing but compliments from the folks I have sold nucs to from this hive and it's descendants. They have all been on lc.

All bees on lc that are not treated do NOT die.


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## Barry

iddee said:


> I have never treated it or any of the resulting hives I got from it.


Really?

"I haven't experienced any negative actions with fogging" Your words.


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## Barry

BjornBee said:


> Barry,
> Maybe you didn't mention it. But many others did. Why do you think so many eyebrows went up when J. Berry made her comments. Because that's what people didn't expect, and its certainly not what many had stated.


It hasn't phased me. I have ideas as to why the mite levels were as stated, but so what. It doesn't change the fact that those of us on SC are able to keep bees without any treatments. Goodness, even Bill, who's bees were used, hasn't treated ever. So there are mites in his hives. So? Try to use this as a beating stick, but it changes nothing in reality, only in the mind.

- Barry


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## iddee

I remove 30 to 50 hives from structures, trees, etc. annually. These bees I treat.

The bees from the one hive and their descendants are in another yard and receive no treatments of any kind.


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## TwT

Barry said:


> . LC bees without some form of treatment haven't survived.
> 
> - Barry


I started beekeeping in 04, bought 3 packages of Kona's and started doing removals (kona's have past), I have never treated a hive in my life, never even saw one be treated, I am not on small cell and never done a sugar shake or even a mite count and my bee's live fine, I bought 3 PBA queens 2 years ago and they live fine also, bee's are living more and more every day without being on small cell but small cell people will not see this because they think it is small cell is the reason, in their case it could be but I splurge and want bee's that survive without putting on small cell, I always thought the bee's would adapt and my removals have I guest, I have never been sold on small cell working like most say, but it, could but when my bee's make it on regular cell, makes me wonder if it isn't just the bee's themselves instead of their cells, I have said before that my father didn't know he was suppose to treat hives and his have made it over 13 years and one hive is going on 16, he just got them for his garden. he's never even change out the frames unless them needed to be changed..


I have been thinking lately that people selling SC queens for high dollar, well if they need SC to live, wonder what I can get for my regular cell queens that live? my queens are more versatile, mine can live on SC but theirs cant live on regular cell, sounds like twice the bee and should be twice the price  ,,,,, aw I am just kidding but the thought has crossed my mind,,, got that spoon out stirring the pot!!!!!


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## beemandan

I, too, know several beeks who maintain untreated hives using traditional cell. In my opinion, it isn't the size of the cell that matters. Most folks who go to small cell are conscientious beekeepers. They cull comb with excessive drone cells. They don't keep ancient brood comb. Many have introduced feral queens into their yards. Michael Bush often extolls the idea of foundationless beekeeping. We all know that many commercial beekeepers use loads of chemicals most of us wouldn't want in our hives. Where do you suppose that wax for foundation (or for coating plastic) comes from? The overall well being (long term survival) of our colonies is the result of many variables and varroa are only one piece.

As an aside, in conjunction with the small cell study, Cindy Bee, a highly respected beekeeper and bee remover, brought out many dozens of feral brood combs from her removals. Out of the 40+ samples so far, I believe, Jennifer said that only a couple were less than 5mm. Most were 5.2+. Cindy, by the way, is one of the beekeepers I know who has never treated and does not use small cell.


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## Michael Bush

>Sounds so good. But don't forget the many comments made by you over the years that included losing hives while regressing, perhaps taking several years.

I try to offer the worst case senario. I lost them when I started regressing late in the year and I tried to treat with Apistan that fall and still couldn't save them. But it has not taken me several years to regress. Some people, however, have said it did take them some time.

>And then there is the breeding from survivors along the way.

When I started I had no ferals and every year I've been expanding with packages and some of my small cell hives in the outyards are probably still commercial queens from some of those. They still have no problems. Dennis has mostly commercial queens on small cell with no problems.

> Throw in some ferals and other stock along the way. And in the end, I'm sure your bees were different from when you started.

In my home yard, NOW, yes they are different. Yes I think feral survivors are helpful, but I did not find them necessary.

>But I guess "regressed, and mite problems disappear" sounds better. Never mind that its a subtle change from "mites went away" to "mite problems went away (disappear)". I'm sure many will making that change in future comments.

As I posted earlier, I tried to find a dead mite on a tray this last month to show a group of newbees and after searching five trays for several minutes that had been in for a month or so I couldn't find one. And as I said before, every spring the inspector can't find one either. I would have to say I have a lot less mites than when I was on large cell and treating for them.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beescerts.htm

The point is that it's the long term that matters and the big picture that matters. So far we have a short term study that says you'll have more bees and the number of mites won't be different in the first year on small cell when they are all kept in the same apiary. For me that still leaves a lot of questions.

>At least we have stopped openly commenting that smallcell takes care of everything under the sun to include afb, etc.

Hmmmm... Having never had AFB I don't know, but if Grout's research is correct and the bees chew out cells once they fall below a certain threshold and since that threshold involves a lot less cocoons in small cell, and since spores could build up in those layers of cocoons, I can see that it might make a lot of difference on AFB.


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## kirk-o

I don't take the time to count mites.I'm to busy.How about Dee Lusby's experiment with small cell She has doing bees for over twenty years now with small cell and no treatments.
I like small cell because I didn't want to consume honey from a contaminated hive or sell honey from a contaminated hive.I also Like the idea of bees getting resistive to mites because they ain't going away.I on't find much benefit in argueing the pro's and con's on 
small cell people seem to do what they want.I just do small cell and no treatment because I feel better about it.I know Charles Martin Simmon had success also with natural cell size.Unfortunatley he Passed away this month
kirkobeeo


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## thebee

So far nobody has lost a hive of small cell bees due to varroa?


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## Bizzybee

How does small cell stop the production of mites?


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## BjornBee

Bizzy,
Research has shown smallcell does NOT STOP the production of mites.


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## Michael Bush

>Research has shown smallcell does NOT STOP the production of mites.

Hmmmm. Not mine nor many others... but that seems to be the results of Jennifer Berry's one experiment.


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## BjornBee

MB,
First, smallcell "stop mites or at least some decreased (suppressed) amount", then in discussing J Berry's results within this very thread, its suggested that its not the mite levels that ANYONE ever mentioned but the "impact" of the mites. And now were right back to taking the claim from suppressing mites (or the effect of mites) to claiming small cell stops the mite production altogether. This is getting ridiculous! I could see one suggesting a decrease in mite production, or even the personal observation that mite effects/impacts are decreased, but to suggest that smallcell totally STOPS mite production is wrong.

I find it ironic that many can show success without smallcell as some suggest with smallcell, but for some reason, those on smallcell only attribute that success to this one factor. Even when a long called for study suggests otherwise. And now its somehow being downplayed as "one" experiment.

BTW MB, my comments about AFB were in response to my recollection of AFB claims and comments by you in regards to D. Lusby's AFB hype and claims. Remember, she had AFB, went to smallcell and changed over ALL her comb, and then claimed smallcell was the reason for the AFB going away? I do! But anyone giving it a second of thought could see that changing the comb was the primary factor.

Now its onto this Grout's research. But you don't sound so confident. You mention "if" his research is correct, hmmmm. And this whole theory is based on "if" the bees change over the comb, "Perhaps" AFB could be controlled by new comb, etc. Your really reaching on this one! To suggest that smallcell should be relied upon or even considered as a control for afb, factors in way too many variables to even suggest that ANY effectiveness is reliable. How often does smallcell change over? The timing would have to be in complete sync with afb outbreaks, etc. hardly something not worth mentioning and promoting.

I would think that promoting and educating people as to comb rotation would be a more up front and honest approach. Instead of somehow taking a very far reaching concept of AFB control (as if bees change comb over regularly with smallcell on a level to be effective) and using it as some justification and promotion of smallcell.

But I guess with the shrinking evidence and research now questioning all the past claims of smallcell, I guess one must cling to anything possible.

BTW MB, I read in Oct 07 Bee Culture, "Blog" article, that you keep and promote natural cell beekeeping. But yet it seems that every smallcell conversation has you centered in the middle. As if your promoting smallcell much more than natural cell. They are two different things. I know, you'll now be labeling the different types of comb as "more this" or "more that". Smallcell is not natural comb.

So smallcell is an effective control for AFB. It totally STOPS the production of mites. What other magical claims are we going to hear today.....


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## sierrabees

<I don't think you can say only one thing is involved>

Michael,

I think this statement nails down the root of most of our problems, including CCD. I guess that is where the word INTEGRATED comes from when we talk about pest control. Trouble is we need to find most of the significant factors before we can integrate them into a program and we are a long way from there.


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## Barry

BjornBee said:


> MB,
> First, smallcell "stop mites or at least some decreased (suppressed) amount"


Please show where this quote came from.



> This is getting ridiculous! I could see one suggesting a decrease in mite production, or even the personal observation that mite effects/impacts are decreased, but to suggest that smallcell totally STOPS mite production is wrong.


There is absolutely nothing wrong with me or anyone else sharing what we see in our hives. If we don't see mites, we don't see them. Draw whatever conclusion you want, but to make it look as if I or Michael have said "small cell totally STOPS mite production" is totally false.

- Barry


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## Barry

beemandan said:


> As an aside, in conjunction with the small cell study, Cindy Bee, a highly respected beekeeper and bee remover, brought out many dozens of feral brood combs from her removals. Out of the 40+ samples so far, I believe, Jennifer said that only a couple were less than 5mm. Most were 5.2+. Cindy, by the way, is one of the beekeepers I know who has never treated and does not use small cell.


First, anyone who is a bee remover and integrates the removed stock into their colonies has other dynamics/influences going on than someone like myself who simply keeps the stock I have. At what rate are new bees being integrated and what affect does this have on the treatment free outcome? I don't know. My experience is simply keeping my local stock of bees on SC.

Secondly, I have older brood comb from a bee tree that is mostly 4.9 cell size. In the cutouts I've done, I have always found sections of comb that have had 4.9 cell size, even smaller. What we know about bees needing to regress (even Jennifer Berry mentioned this and supported the need to regress before the study) before we see consistency in comb building, It would only reason that escaped LC bees would not immediately construct SC's. The mere presence of 4.9 cells within cutout combs, even if the minority, tell a story. Dennis Murrell found that his bees could still manage fine with a mix of cell sizes, but the SC was present.

Thirdly, to try and make a claim as TWT has and Cindy Bee that beekeepers can use the long standing equipment (LC comb) and be successful keeping bees without ANY treatments or unusual manipulations for many years deserves to be headline news. In fact I think I'll put that on the home page of Beesource. I don't know why all the hubbub with 99 percent of beekeepers not being able to do this. I think Jennifer Berry did a study on the wrong bee hives!

- Barry


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## Kieck

Does anyone have a link yet for published results of Berry's study? I'd like to read through it.

If this turns out to be correct (numbers of mites are not significantly different between commerical-size and smaller-size cells), and survival would be significantly different, then I think we need to go back to the "mite-population/survival" correlation. We likely need to throw out the thresholds that have been established, then. I wonder what would cause a difference in survival rates, if not the populations of mites?


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## Barry

Kieck said:


> If this turns out to be correct (numbers of mites are not significantly different between commerical-size and smaller-size cells),


At this point, only one person (Jennifer Berry) is saying/seeing this. I know a handful of beekepers on SC who find little to no mites in their hives. How to explain the gap, I don't know.

- Barry


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## BjornBee

Barry said:


> Please show where this quote came from.
> 
> 
> 
> There is absolutely nothing wrong with me or anyone else sharing what we see in our hives. If we don't see mites, we don't see them. Draw whatever conclusion you want, but to make it look as if I or Michael have said "small cell totally STOPS mite production" is totally false.
> 
> - Barry


Barry, are you reading the same thread as me?

Your asking me to provide quotes as if some how suggesting that NOBODY had never commented on claims of smallcell decreasing mite. The whole thing about "smallcell has shorter capping times, and thus fewer mites" has been commented over and over again on this board. I'm not going to waste my time and bother digging through thousands of posts to satisfy this request. It been said many times.

As for your second comment, someone asked how smallcell STOPS mite production. I commented that IT DOES NOT. MB himself came back and commented, suggesting this is not true as to what I have said, and seems to suggest that it true in his hives. ("nor many others") 

I have never heard this comment, never seen a report to suggest this, and goes against everything ever previously said. MB's own website mentions his elimination of mite "problems". Now its been expanded to include the TOTAL elimination of ANY mite reproduction as a result of using smallcell. Hogwash in my opinion.

Making broad comments about elimination of mite reproduction on an open forum disguised as "personal" observations, and thus warranted as worthy, may be OK with you. I just hope you don't feel an honest rebuttal is not worthy just the same.

If MB now has crossed the line and has gone on record that smallcell totally eliminates mite reproduction, then so be it. That is exactly what he has said. I won't dispute what he see's in his own hive. I will dispute his throwing in "others" in his observation, and the basis for the comment on the primary matter. Mites DO in fact reproduce in smallcell. To suggest otherwise is wrong.


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## Barry

BjornBee said:


> Your asking me to provide quotes as if some how suggesting that NOBODY had never commented on claims of smallcell decreasing mite.


I'm interested in the first part of your quote "stop mites."



> MB's own website mentions his elimination of mite "problems".


This is as far as I will go with what I see in my hives.



> I just hope you don't feel an honest rebuttal is not worthy just the same.


Not at all. But I think it is very important to be clear on exactly what is meant by certain words said and quoted.



> If MB now has crossed the line and has gone on record that smallcell totally eliminates mite reproduction, then so be it. That is exactly what he has said. I won't dispute what he see's in his own hive. I will dispute his throwing in "others" in his observation, and the basis for the comment on the primary matter. Mites DO in fact reproduce in smallcell. To suggest otherwise is wrong.


If he has said this, "totally eliminates mite reproduction", then they are his words describing his hives. I have no basis to make this claim for myself as I don't test for this.

- Barry


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## BjornBee

Barry, my comment was,

"stop mites or at least some decreased (suppressed) amount". 

Taking the two words from the sentence and the overall point, misses the point. 

I fail to see the importance of scrutinizing this first point, when the same point was just recently made anyways.

I was suggesting that over the years, we have heard many claims. Certainly "stops mites" can be thrown into that broad comment suggesting anything from control, to stopping the effects of damage, etc.

But my point was that we went from controlling mites (less mites in smallcell due to capped times), to then suggesting that with J Berry's report, that its not really the "count" of the mites but the impact that's important, to now going as far as to suggest that mite do not reproduce in smallcell at all.

Hope this helps.


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## beemandan

Barry said:


> Thirdly, to try and make a claim as TWT has and Cindy Bee that beekeepers can use the long standing equipment (LC comb) and be successful keeping bees without ANY treatments or unusual manipulations for many years deserves to be headline news. In fact I think I'll put that on the home page of Beesource. I don't know why all the hubbub with 99 percent of beekeepers not being able to do this. I think Jennifer Berry did a study on the wrong bee hives!
> - Barry


Tell me that I've misinterpreted your statement. It sounds to me like you are implying that TWT and Cindy Bee are being untruthful. Could you clarify?


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## Barry

BjornBee said:


> Barry, my comment was,
> 
> "stop mites or at least some decreased (suppressed) amount".
> 
> Taking the two words from the sentence and the overall point, misses the point.
> 
> I fail to see the importance of scrutinizing this first point, when the same point was just recently made anyways.


It's very important as you are making a case out of it. Some of us are simply telling you what we see in our hives and your interest is in creating some kind of conflict here.

Here are Michael's words in this thread:

"I would have to say I have a lot less mites than when I was on large cell and treating for them."

"I have trouble finding any Varroa now"

"What I do know is with small cell I can't even find one mite on my trays to show people"

Now, one can spin this how they want, but he has not said "absolutely zero mites in the hive".



> But my point was that we went from controlling mites (less mites in smallcell due to capped times), to then suggesting that with J Berry's report, that its not really the "count" of the mites but the impact that's important, to now going as far as to suggest that mite do not reproduce in smallcell at all.


There are less mites, we see that as an obvious fact in our hives. Berry's report means different things to different people. Those of us (I'll speak for myself here) who have been using SC for years know that a one year study like this is very limited in scope and has findings directly opposite our hives. Deal with it. Make it mean whatever you want, but it doesn't change the facts. What we don't know for sure is the "why" question.

- Barry


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## Barry

beemandan said:


> Tell me that I've misinterpreted your statement.


Dan -

Maybe I misinterpreted your statement! 

No, I don't want to imply that they are untruthful. Perhaps not fully giving us the story. I want to make a point that simply stating: 

"I started beekeeping in 04, bought 3 packages of Kona's and started doing removals (kona's have past), I have never treated a hive in my life, never even saw one be treated, I am not on small cell and never done a sugar shake or even a mite count and my bee's live fine"

and

"I, too, know several beeks who maintain untreated hives using traditional cell."

and

"Cindy, by the way, is one of the beekeepers I know who has never treated and does not use small cell."

and not giving us all the details means little. How do they "maintain" them? I've been around long enough to know that most often we hear only part of the story that supports the claim without hearing all the other details. If in fact these claims are true, it ought to be headline news in all the bee mags. This just doesn't happen in my world.

- Barry


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## iddee

I have no idea what sc does or doesn't do, I have never used it. I do have successful bees on lc. I read and hear more every month about others that are having more success on lc. I have read hundreds of posts here and on other sites about how people keep their bees. 

Quoted by Barry>>>>without ANY treatments or unusual manipulations for many years<<<<

I do not and will not believe there is a beek in the usa who uses sc or lc and does nothing else to help or support their hive. That quote looks to be a PMA to me. It defies a reply of any kind.

Certainly sc bees will have reduced mites if the bees are developing a natural resistance to mites. They will do the same on lc or natural comb. So why credit one item when there are multiple things going on in the hives.

I also notice Barry didn't come back on my untreated LC hives after I said all my treating was on my removals. I wonder why.


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## MichaelW

Check out "The Jennifer Berry Report" below.

http://www.heartlandbees.com/index.htm


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## Barry

iddee said:


> Quoted by Barry>>>>without ANY treatments or unusual manipulations for many years<<<<
> 
> I do not and will not believe there is a beek in the usa who uses sc or lc and does nothing else to help or support their hive. That quote looks to be a PMA to me. It defies a reply of any kind.


Well it's not. You made my point, that as beekeepers, there's a lot more to it than just "I keep bees on LC and am successful."



> So why credit one item when there are multiple things going on in the hives.


So tell us about all the things going on in your hives that you attribute to being able to successfully keep bees on LC without any kind of treatments. Come on, there should be a long list now as many of us who have gone the SC route have created websites full of details backing up our findings.



> I also notice Barry didn't come back on my untreated LC hives after I said all my treating was on my removals. I wonder why.


Because I didn't see the need to. I addressed your come back in my most recent posts. I just forgot to include your quote.

- Barry


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## BjornBee

Barry, I have already detailed this exchange....

Someone asked how smallcell STOPS mites from reproducing.

I said "Smallcell does not stop mites from reproducing.

Fill in here...........................................................

Now, How about filling in the one statement you seemingly conveniently forgot to mention as you selectively chose those comments from MB to make your point.

Then read them together and perhaps you can see a little more than what you quoted. 

Is this so hard? To actually read the comments I am referencing?

And whether I'm making a case out of something or not, how about next time qouting the entire comment. Or at least the sentence that you selected the TWO words from.


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## BjornBee

Barry, you mention all the websites that SC users have made. Backing up their claims.

I guess that was one of my earlier points in this thread. For all the talk, all the hype, all the comments, websites and so-called details as you say, not a lot was offered after J. Berry came out with her findings thus far. I asked "where is the rebuttals? But nothing.

What I saw was a lot of back peddling, rationalization, changing of the points concerning mites(smallcell reduces mites, then we went to "counts don't matter its how healthy or effective it is", to now someone suggesting that smallcell STOPS mites from reproducing altogether.

Makes me wonder how professional or detailed some of that so-called information is on those websites.

As a side note to your discussion with iddee, I already pointed out the question as to "why smallcell users only attribute their success to smallcell, and nothing else?" No reply by anyone. But now your asking another person to list all the contributing factors to success on LC. Hmmm.

At this point, How about listing the reasons that SC is successful? I heard it was capping time and suppressed mite reproduction. Then I heard some waver and suggest that perhaps the counts don't matter that maybe something else was at work. Now we have suggestions that SC completely STOPS mite reproduction.

Maybe someone should start answering why SC works. Is there anyone out there that can add to that beyond "it doesn't matter, they survive!" Yeah, like that answers it.


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## Barry

BjornBee said:


> Barry, I have already detailed this exchange....
> 
> Someone asked how smallcell STOPS mites from reproducing.
> 
> I said "Smallcell does not stop mites from reproducing.


And Michael said:

" Hmmmm. Not mine nor many others... but that seems to be the results of Jennifer Berry's one experiment."

Now, we can interpret this exchange as Michael saying SC completely "stops" and eliminates all mites from the hives/bees, or we can say his meaning was that SC "stops" mites from reproducing, but not to a point of zero mites. Given all that he has said on this forum, which one do you think is the correct meaning? The second meaning is just as truthful because there was no qualifier to the original statement.

- Barry


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## BjornBee

Thats what I figured. More rationalization.


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## Barry

BjornBee said:


> For all the talk, all the hype, all the comments, websites and so-called details as you say, not a lot was offered after J. Berry came out with her findings thus far. I asked "where is the rebuttals? But nothing.


Well, why the need for a rebuttal? It changes not a thing in my hives.



> What I saw was a lot of back peddling, rationalization, changing of the points concerning mites(smallcell reduces mites, then we went to "counts don't matter its how healthy or effective it is", to now someone suggesting that smallcell STOPS mites from reproducing altogether.


Now you've added a word. "smallcell STOPS mites from reproducing altogether" isn't a quote you can find from anyone on this thread. Your word added at the end makes it mean something different, technically speaking, since that is what you're building a case on.



> At this point, How about listing the reasons that SC is successful?


Nope, not by me. I've already given blood to inform people and frankly, if you're only going to sit there and debate it and never get your own hands dirty, well, that's as far as it will go. 

- Barry


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## BjornBee

Barry,
You can read it all you want.

Someone said "How does smallcell STOP mite reproduction. STOP being the KEY word.

I said "Smallcell does not STOP mite reproduction.

MB suggested that my comment was not true. He suggested that in HIS hives and others, that mite reproduction is STOPPED.

If I say "smallcell does not stop mite reproduction". And the next person says "No, it does" regardless of the words used, the meaning is still the same.


I said smallcell does not stop mite reproduction. The very next comment repudiated that. Very clear to me. There was no other meaning suggested or made.

The saying could of been "No way", "uh, uh", or anything else. Its hard to convey the meaning in further dialog when I am referencing a rebuttal or repudiation of my clear comment. You have to convey the meaning. I in no way said MB said this or that. I said he suggested it. 

Again....

Someone asked how smallcell STOPS mite reproduction.

I said very clearly "Smallcell does not stop mite reproduction".

MB conveyed that it must be true by commenting "Not in my hives......"

Three consecutive comments. All based on a point of smallcell stopping mite production or not. Its one or the other. I said no, MB suggested OTHEWISE!

I have acknowledge that I won't dispute MB's own findings. And that I fully acknowledge his new stance on his commenting or SUGGESTING that smallcell does in fact STOP mite reproduction.

Not sure what the bid deal is at this time.


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## BjornBee

Barry, please explain your comment about me not getting my hands dirty. I certainly don't want to misread something here....


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## Barry

BjornBee said:


> If I say "smallcell does not stop mite reproduction". And the next person says "No, it does" regardless of the words used, the meaning is still the same.


Then only Michael can put this to rest by telling us what HIS understanding of your words were when he replied to you.


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## Barry

"Hands dirty" meaning putting bees on SC for more than a couple of years, giving the bees time to settle in, reporting back to everyone with pictures and details about what is happening, being open to critic. When you do this, I'll openly and at great length discuss with you all the details of SC. Already did it myself, see no reason to do it again. Dennis, Dee, Erik and others who are one other lists were part of the process.

- Barry


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## BWrangler

Hi Guys,

>At HAS Jennifer Berry reported that the UGA study is complete... which was a one year study that showed no significant difference in mite counts.

After one year, the results of my small cell experience was much worse than J. Berry's. I'd seen some interesting bee behavior, but the mites killed over 90% of my hives. And the few survivors were just barely dinks. I visited with the Lusby's and they encouraged me to continue with my survivors. I did just that. And what a difference after the second season.

>As I said on another recent post, my personal theory/suspicion is that people who have been successful with small cell have been breeding better bees and/or mites.....

That's what I thought back in 1996. And my first year's experience with small cell seemed to confirm it. That's one of the reason's I traveled to the Lusbys. I returned with a couple of nucs. But they proved unsuitable and were destroyed after a short time.

I continued with the survivors but they proved susceptible to parafoul, the result of a genetic bottleneck from my limited number of survivors. I requeened with a sample of just about every commercial selection available in the US. These bees thrived without treatment when on small cell. And also in tbhs with an undisturbed broodnest.

But when these same bees/queens, that had thrived without treatments on small cell, were put back into hives with clean, large cell comb, in the same beeyard, they all required treatment to survive. You can read about it here:

http://bwrangler.litarium.com/un-regressed-bees/

>I guess what bothers me about this conversation is the lack of responses as rebuttals to J. Berry. I heard for years that small cell showed reduced mite levels and that those with side by side studies (informal as they may be), mites were drastically reduced....

Two thoughts here. I have counted mites and know that natural mite fall is significantly less with small cell hives than with large cell. My small cell hives averaged about 1 to 2 mites/week natural mite drop. My best Russians dropped a magnitude more than that. And my best mongrels selected for mite tolerance were double that. But not at the end of the first year.

My beekeeping has changed dramatically since then. The mite issue, and everything it entails has become completely irrelevant to my beekeeping. My focus is elsewhere. It's on the bees and not the mites. If you are still treating, your beekeeping is probably focus more on mites than on the bees. Just keep track of the time you spend on each. Then compare.

So, I don't read or enter into discussions on anything related to mites unless invited. I don't count them. I don't think about them. I don't worry about them. I don't follow the 'latest' research. 'Does small cell work' is a question that's almost two decades old for some and a decade old for others, including myself. I suspect that other's who had the same experience with small cell and mites are in the same situation. Mites just aren't their concern.

An interesting question: Think about your beekeeping a decade ago. What was your focus then? Still focused on it now? Still following those same things like you were back then? If you have grey hair like I do, it may take a few moments to even remember what was burning in the smoker a decade ago :>)))

I've learned that my bees will quickly show me when they have any kind of problem, mites included. So, I watch me bees and not the mites. Besides, all the information and experience anyone needs is already available to keep bees rather than mites. Another rehash only consumes much time and accomplishes very little.

>As an aside, in conjunction with the small cell study, Cindy Bee, a highly respected beekeeper and bee remover, brought out many dozens of feral brood combs from her removals.

I've measured a fair amount of comb myself. And all of it contained a significant amount of small cell size comb. See:

http://bwrangler.litarium.com/natural-comb/

Regards
Dennis


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## BjornBee

Barry said:


> "Hands dirty" meaning putting bees on SC for more than a couple of years, giving the bees time to settle in, reporting back to everyone with pictures and details about what is happening, being open to critic. When you do this, I'll openly and at great length discuss with you all the details of SC. Already did it myself, see no reason to do it again. Dennis, Dee, Erik and others who are one other lists were part of the process.
> 
> - Barry


I guess I did ask you to provide the same level of data that you were asking others to provide. Sorry I did. If your only willing to discuss details and have conversations with those who have met your personal requirements, you can take me out of the mix. I'll have no part of that.

Besides, I'm just a lonely small beekeeper with only three years of smallcell experience. I may not meet your requirments, but I'll certainly never at this point make claims that I have heard over the years in regards to smallcell. 

Dang, so now it takes several years of smallcell, posting pictures, and giving reports....


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## BWrangler

Hi Guys,

A few more thoughts.

I've always welcomed additional research, experience, etc., concerning small cell. In fact, that is the purpose of my website. I hope it encourages others to give it a go and then share their experiences/research. Maybe others would find the process easier or more properly focused that I did a decade ago.

I certainly don't want to disparage anyone. So, let everyone's observations stand on their own merit, with their own limitations. 

But I suspect that any researcher who would want to test small cell would thoroughly research what was done in the past(thinking NZ study as an example). And I think that they would thoroughly understand what is being done by those who are succeeding with it, so they could tell us why. Did I get that right? We tell them how. They tell is why :>)))

I doubt that anyone who has read even a single thread of small cell experience would think any evaluation could be done in one year, especially the first one. If someone does, the results from such an evaluation most clearly demonstrate a lack of understanding how it's done. And without the how, you can't get the if. Let alone the why.

Regards
Dennis


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## Michael Bush

>Now its onto this Grout's research. But you don't sound so confident. You mention "if" his research is correct, hmmmm.

I have a pretty consistent attitude toward research. I consider it a pretty good start at figuring things out but it's only one researcher doing one set of experiments. I assume that Grout's research is correct based on what I've seen in general, but I don't know of any other research done on the subject, so I know of no repetition of the work. Hence the term "if".

> And this whole theory is based on "if" the bees change over the comb, "Perhaps" AFB could be controlled by new comb, etc. Your really reaching on this one! To suggest that smallcell should be relied upon or even considered as a control for afb, factors in way too many variables to even suggest that ANY effectiveness is reliable. How often does smallcell change over? The timing would have to be in complete sync with afb outbreaks, etc. hardly something not worth mentioning and promoting.

I have never promoted it. I am simply offering a possible explanation for why it may work. I have done no experiments with AFB and am not purporting that small cell does or does not control AFB. I am merely offering a possible mechanism.

>I would think that promoting and educating people as to comb rotation would be a more up front and honest approach. Instead of somehow taking a very far reaching concept of AFB control (as if bees change comb over regularly with smallcell on a level to be effective) and using it as some justification and promotion of smallcell.

We aren't talking about changing over, just chewing out the cocoons. You don't find it interesting that the first serious epidemics of AFB happened after enlarging the foundation? You don't think that hundreds of extra layers of cocoons left in the cells wouldn't contribute to the problem?

>But I guess with the shrinking evidence and research now questioning all the past claims of smallcell, I guess one must cling to anything possible.

I don't have to cling to anything. I have bees that I can simply keep and deal with the normal problems of beekeeping and NOT have to worry about Varroa. I have not treated AT ALL since 2003 on any of my hives and see no indication that I will need to again. Nothing that someone comes out with in a study is likely to change the reality of things.

>BTW MB, I read in Oct 07 Bee Culture, "Blog" article, that you keep and promote natural cell beekeeping. But yet it seems that every smallcell conversation has you centered in the middle. As if your promoting smallcell much more than natural cell. They are two different things. I know, you'll now be labeling the different types of comb as "more this" or "more that". Smallcell is not natural comb.

They are close enough to the same and the reasons for their success are close enough to the same that it is merely two ways to arrive at the same end. I have done a lot of both and will continue to do a lot of both.

>So smallcell is an effective control for AFB. It totally STOPS the production of mites. What other magical claims are we going to hear today.....

I have NEVER said that "small cell is an effective control for AFB". I have no idea where you got that. I am merely offering a possible mechanism to explain Dee Lusby's claim that it is.


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## fat/beeman

I am here to say that I wont down play ms berry's study. I am on small cell since 1992 and sell bees so if it don't work I would be running out of bees. I never do mite counts I think its a waste of time.I have more pressing things to do.
but ms berry's study might be flawed if she didn't use real clean wax to start from and have bees already regressed.
my bees seem to build over large cell wax with 4.9 as some people can attest to.
useing bees from cut outs don't give a true story of s/c bees.
not trying to sell small cell to any one but I don't lose bees and they over winter good.
like to hear from people have bought them from me on this subject.
this is my thoughts======you can make up your own minds not going to debate if it works or not.

Don


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## Michael Bush

>As for your second comment, someone asked how smallcell STOPS mite production. I commented that IT DOES NOT. MB himself came back and commented, suggesting this is not true as to what I have said, and seems to suggest that it true in his hives. ("nor many others")

It was not my intention to imply that it totally stops mite reproduction. To me it is quite obvious that it interferes with it. 

>I have never heard this comment, never seen a report to suggest this, and goes against everything ever previously said. MB's own website mentions his elimination of mite "problems". Now its been expanded to include the TOTAL elimination of ANY mite reproduction as a result of using smallcell. Hogwash in my opinion.

I have not expanded anything.

>Making broad comments about elimination of mite reproduction on an open forum disguised as "personal" observations, and thus warranted as worthy, may be OK with you. I just hope you don't feel an honest rebuttal is not worthy just the same.

My "personal" observations of having not enough mites to count has been verified by the Nebraska state inspector for the last four years.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beescerts.htm

Is that a satisfactory rebuttal?

>I guess that was one of my earlier points in this thread. For all the talk, all the hype, all the comments, websites and so-called details as you say, not a lot was offered after J. Berry came out with her findings thus far. I asked "where is the rebuttals? But nothing.

What do you want for a rebuttal? She measured what she saw. I wasn't there. I measured what I saw. The state inspector has inspected my hives the last four years and seen the same thing I see. All of which I have already posted many times and at least twice in just this one thread.

>What I saw was a lot of back peddling, rationalization, changing of the points concerning mites(smallcell reduces mites, then we went to "counts don't matter its how healthy or effective it is", to now someone suggesting that smallcell STOPS mites from reproducing altogether.

What back peddling? I have not changed my mind a bit. I am curious as to why she would get the results she would, and of course am looking for some mechanism that would explain the differences.

>At this point, How about listing the reasons that SC is successful? I heard it was capping time and suppressed mite reproduction. Then I heard some waver and suggest that perhaps the counts don't matter that maybe something else was at work. Now we have suggestions that SC completely STOPS mite reproduction.

In the end the mite counts DON'T matter if the bees continue to thrive and survive. However mine have dropped significantly.

>Maybe someone should start answering why SC works. Is there anyone out there that can add to that beyond "it doesn't matter, they survive!" Yeah, like that answers it.

Not knowing why something works is no reason not to use it. We STILL don't know why Aspirin works yet people have been using it for thousands of years that we have records of, back to Hippocrates at least and virtually every native population was using it, so it was probably much longer that that.

That it works is a good enough answer for me. I was tired of losing hives to Varroa and having all my beekeeping energy consumed by Varroa and am much happier that they survive and Varroa levels stay so low that they are hard to find, without requiring my intervention.

Do you want to raise Varroa or bees? I'd rather raise bees.


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## BjornBee

Good night guys....


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## Bizzybee

I was the one that asked how sc stops mite production.

Bjorn answered with it (doesn't stop the production) but I believe went on further to not say that he totally dismissed that it could reduce the production.

Way back in the thread I asked Michael B if he had used the same tactics in keeping bees with the exception that any of those bees were kept on lc wax. He said that in fact he had not and that if he got new bees he immediately put them on sc foundation.

And with the exception of bwrangler, no one has addressed what my original inference or question of small cell was. I'm not sure now without going back to his post when he stated that he took sc bees and put them back on lc if he still kept those bees on lc the same as the sc bees? He did say that he had to treat them. Did he take them back to lc in the same manner that the bees were in going to sc and given the opportunity to survive? He didn't say. How many bees were taken back to lc? He didn't say.

FB made the statement that he made about sc and the non existence of mites. Yet he advocates the use of fogging with fgmo/thymol and soft treatments with essential oils. Not in that post but others. And yes Jennifer did use bees that were already on sc. I can't honestly say how long they had been but I believe it to be at least 2 years they had been regressed? beemandan may be able to answer that? So given that these bees had been regressed sufficiently? I don't see that this was a first year study on bees on sc. Although that seems to be getting eluded to often in this thread.

I think it may have been mentioned somewhere back up the line, the need for a study of both lc and sc together. Yet that has been the study at UGA. And apparently is over now? I thought it had a fair distance to go? But the results of the test seem have been released and without reading yet, sound discouraging for sc.

But still, no one has answered the question that I asked. How does small cell, let me be careful here, stop, prevent or impede the production of mites?

Michael B gave an honest answer I believe when he said " Not knowing why something works is no reason not to use it." That being his answer that he doesn't know I'm going to assume. But I can appreciate that response. Thank you MB!

But still my question stands. What specifically does sc do that lc doesn't to impede mite production? If small cell doesn't in itself alone physically prevent the mites development, then what does it force the bees to do differently that will?

No one that I am aware of other than UGA and attempted to test side by side bees on lc and sc. Both being handled in the same manner. No preference given to either. And everyone or all but maybe one has simultaneously regressed bees to sc while at the same time taking the bees away from hard treatments at a minimum and most likely soft treatment as well. I mean, whats the point of going to the trouble of regressing if you intend to continue on with treatments? So in coming to a point where there are no mites, or close to it in the drops, sc in being advocated as part of the reason. When no effort to was taken to do the same with bees on lc as well.

So here I sit, waiting for the answer? I can take it either way. Michael, Barry I hope your right!!! Because if UGA is right, I'm going to have to cry!!! Cuz I have spend a load of time and aggravation getting my bees on sc!! Problem is, I do see some indication from bees not on sc that are doing equally as well as those on sc and I to have never treated with anything other than essential oils and that was only for one season. And I hardly see any mites just as you guys have said.

Just because I put 59 cents in copper pennies on the bottom of each hive when I started these practices I use, doesn't mean that the pennies are part of the cure.

So bottom line here is. I'm riding high on top of this fence! I could go either way, given the proper incentive. So I'm sure I'll be doing plenty more proving for myself.................


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## Michael Bush

>I think it may have been mentioned somewhere back up the line, the need for a study of both lc and sc together. Yet that has been the study at UGA. And apparently is over now?

When I talked to Jennifer at HAS she said they intended to continue the study, but I hear she's about to publish something.

>I thought it had a fair distance to go? But the results of the test seem have been released and without reading yet, sound discouraging for sc.

It's really not discouraging to me. My small cell still works fine. 

>But still, no one has answered the question that I asked. How does small cell, let me be careful here, stop, prevent or impede the production of mites?

I have measured on multiple occasions the capping and post capping times on small cell. Everyone else that I know of who has tried it has had the same results and, interestingly, AHB on small cell will have the same results and AHB on large cell will not. Capping time is in eight days and emergence is in nineteen days. Which is consistent with Huber's findings on natural cell back in the late 1700's.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesnaturalcell.htm
http://www.bushfarms.com/huber.htm#eggtoadult

Accepted days for capping and Post Capping.(based on observing bees on 5.4 mm comb)
Capped 9 days after egg layed
Emerges 21 days after egg layed
_________________________________________

Huber's observations on capping and emergence on Natural Comb.

Keep in mind that on the 1st day no time has elapsed and on the 20th 19 days have elapsed. If you have doubts about this add up the elapsed time he refers to. It adds up to 18 ½ days.

"The worm of workers passes three days in the egg, five in the vermicular state, and then the bees close up its cell with a wax covering. The worm now begins spinning its cocoon, in which operation thirty-six hours are consumed. In three days, it changes to a nymph, and passes six days in this form. It is only on the twentieth day of its existence, counting from the moment the egg is laid, that it attains the fly state."

François Huber 4 September 1791.

_________________________________________

I've observed on commercial Carniolan bees and commercial Italian bees a 24 hour shorter pre capping and 24 hour shorter post capping time on 4.95 mm cells in an observation hive.

My observations on 4.95 mm cell size
Capped 8 days after layed
Emerged 19 days after layed

_________________________________________


>Michael B gave an honest answer I believe when he said " Not knowing why something works is no reason not to use it." That being his answer that he doesn't know I'm going to assume. But I can appreciate that response. Thank you MB!

I have a lot of suspicions and some are easily measurable with an observation hive and some small cell comb. I have no doubt that shorter capping and post capping times will reduce Varroa as all of our scientists keep insisting that it will. They simply haven't found the genetics to duplicate those times.

>But still my question stands. What specifically does sc do that lc doesn't to impede mite production? If small cell doesn't in itself alone physically prevent the mites development, then what does it force the bees to do differently that will?

Then there is the issue of male survivorship:
http://www.apidologie.org/index.php...29&url=/articles/apido/pdf/2002/01/Martin.pdf
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=13485245

And that most of what we have observed about AHB and Varroa is likely to just be cell size:
http://www.apidologie.org/index.php...29&url=/articles/apido/pdf/2002/01/Martin.pdf

>No one that I am aware of other than UGA and attempted to test side by side bees on lc and sc. Both being handled in the same manner. No preference given to either.

Actually:
http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.com/~meettheancestors/Varroa.html


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## BWrangler

Hi Guys,

How does it work? I've got some ideas. And I'll share my observations. I'm sure multiple factors are involved. Michael and others have looked at post capping times and found differences. 

The first season I regressed bees, I saw the broodnest cleansing the Lusbys write about begin in earnest during August. Before that, mite tray debris from both large and small cell hives looked the same. The amount and age of natural mite fall was the same, almost exclusively mature female mites. 

In August, all the different races cleansed the broodnest by detecting and actively removing mite infested brood. The bees would uncap brood at the purple eye stage. It was a behavior I'd never seen before. Mite fall increased by magnitudes and it included a larger portion of both males and immatures. Essentially all of the mites had been killed or severely damaged by the bees. So, I did a little more investigating. Natural mite fall under such circumstances isn't a very good indication of colony mite loads as the mite load might be inversely proportional to natural mite fall. But that's another story.

I took several frames containing mostly uncapped brood and removed the exposed pupa. Every single exposed pupa was infected with varroa. I also uncapped and removed sealed brood from the same frames and with just a couple of exceptions, that brood was free of varroa. I inspected about 200 per each side of the frames. Search out my post at Bee-L

Here's the interesting part. Only a few percent of the varroa infected brood cells contained mites that were reproductive. The rest only had mature females without any males or immatures. Those bees stalled mite reproduction by uncapping that brood.

Another interesting observation. The mites remained stalled in those uncapped brood cells until removed and destroyed by the bees. At the time I personally wondered if the uncapped brood acted as a mite trap by attracting questing mites, as the difference in infestation between uncapped and capped brood was so great. Further observations proved the mite trap idea false.

One more observation. I brought those frames home and watched them. Not a single mite left any of the uncapped brood until frames became cold to the touch. Then they abandoned the brood and began questing for better a better location. The following morning only a few mites could be found still associated with the uncapped brood.

The following season, I attempted to document this cleansing. But I was too late. No more massive broodnest cleansing after that first season. The bees would maintain a low level broodnest cleansing which kept the mite populations low and prevented their normal seasonal increase. You could always find a small amount of pupa remains and a few damaged male and immatures throughout the season.

Occasionally a couple of uncapped pupa would be seen on a single frame. But the occurrence was rare.

That was enough to keep the natural mite fall averages at a couple of mites per week. And it prevented me from taking some great broodnest cleansing photos, 'officially' counting brood/mites/immatures and building another webpage. I have a few broodnest cleansing photos at the time.

They made quite a stir and were published, along with some of my observation , in a handful of beekeeping magazines in Scandinavia, Europe and in Eastern Europe.

At the same time, mite tray debris from my large cell hives remained essentially the same as that seen during the mid summer months. Except the number of fallen mature females increased dramatically. None of those mites had any obvious bee damage.

Later, when I put those same small cell broodnest cleansing bees on large cell comb, their mite tray debris was identically to other large cell hives. The broodnest cleansing seen on small cell was neither initiated nor maintained. Mite reproduction proceeded unabated. And those unregressed hives required treatment to survive.

There's something about the cell size that either enhances or triggers the bees ability to detect and remove those mites. I suspect it's a common defense mechanism that bees use for a variety of broodnest pests. Barry's taken some photos of bald headed brood associated with wax moth infestation.

Ok researchers, do the bees hear those mites or smell them. Ha, a trick question ;>) I think they hear them, then smell them. But I really don't have a clue and certainly no means of testing either.

Regards
Dennis


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## Michael Bush

>So here I sit, waiting for the answer? I can take it either way. Michael, Barry I hope your right!!! Because if UGA is right, I'm going to have to cry!!! Cuz I have spend a load of time and aggravation getting my bees on sc!!

I'm not clear where the aggravation is. If you rotate out comb anyway, which seems a popular preventative for AFB, then in three years you'd have the regressed if you just swap it all out for small cell foundation. But anyway, if Jennifer is right, you'll get more bees. If I'm right they'll still be alive. 

> Problem is, I do see some indication from bees not on sc that are doing equally as well as those on sc and I to have never treated with anything other than essential oils and that was only for one season. And I hardly see any mites just as you guys have said.

What if the drifting drones even out the mites? Then having half as many Varroa breeding farms will make a difference in your whole yard.

>Just because I put 59 cents in copper pennies on the bottom of each hive when I started these practices I use, doesn't mean that the pennies are part of the cure.

"Post hoc ergo proctor hoc" is a difficult thing to prove or disprove in anything as complex as a beehive let along something as complex as a beeyard. The very climate around you is changing as you do your experiments as well as the complex relationships with everything else.


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## NeilV

*More thoughts from somebody who does not know what he's talking about*

Here's what I can add at this point in the thread:

1. I still don't understand why this subject gets people so riled up. 

2. Although I still really wonder whether/how small cell works, I do know that my hives, which were SC, hardly had any varroa in them. Based on my own limited experience, I have no basis to dispute the idea that buying regressed, small cell, non-treated bees eliminates varroa as a hive problem. I'm not saying it totally eliminate the mites, but I did not have enought to worry about at all. 

3. I bought my bees from Don (Fat Beeman), who is on SC and does not treat with chemicals. I would add that his bees are extremely gentle, and Don is very nice and willing to help new beekeepers by answering questions they have. Even though my bees did not do perfectly this year, I still highly recommend him to somebody who wants to buy small cell bees or wants really gentle bees.

4. Assuming that small cell works (and I don't claim to know that it works or not), I have a hard time believing that it is due to shorter capping times. I buy the idea that capping times are shorter. I do not understand why knocking a day off of the capping time would make a difference. From what I understand: (a) nurse bees that could carry mites would still stick their heads in the cell many times per day before capping and that would expose the larvae to mites; (b) mites move prettty quick. My point is that even if it took mites 3 hours on average to get inside a cell, I fail to see how shortening capping times makes any practical difference.

5. I can dream up another explanation for why it would work to disrupt the varroa life cycle. I actually got this idea from reading an article a couple of weeks ago in the December 2006 American Bee Journal. (I got an old issue working a booth at the fair for my bee club.) That magazine had an article about a guy who went to Nepal to teach beekeeping. He saw Apis Ceranae hives there, which is the natural host for v. mites. He observed that when A. Ceranae hives are kept EHB hives hives, the varroa mites do not infect the EHB hives at all. In other words, these mites may not really like EHB hives all that much in the first place. He also stated that, in the A. Ceranae hives, the mites ONLY infect drone cells. The writer suggested that some researcher should study the mites in there natural environment to see if they focus on some substance that is present only in or in greater concentrations in A. Ceranae drone larvae. V. mites may favor large drone cells even more than we know. Maybe there is some substance that more present in drone cell and even less present in small cell cells. Maybe the mites just naturally want to go to big cells (like A. Ceranae drone cells) and the smaller the cell the less attracted they are. Maybe smaller cells just get the mites confused, making them pass up the worker cells to wait for something bigger, which they are genetically programmed to like better. I doubt anybody has ever done that sort of study, and I'm not sure how it would be done. In any event, I don't think that the lack of known explanation means that there is no possible explanation.

Finally, I have a couple of questions:

1. BWrangler says that he did take some bees from small cell to large cell and noticed an increas in mites? Anybody else take a queen/hive from small cell to large cell? What happened to the mite situation?

2. In your experience, what effect does small cell and/or using bees that are hygenic and from non-treated stock have on hive growth and honey production?


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## Bizzybee

Thanks guys! I just skimmed over your responses so I'll have to came back later. Now I gotta hit the hay, lord knows I can use my beauty sleep!! 

I hope you are right Michael! They are doing quite well now, I have no real complaints. But I'm really not sold on whether it's the small cell itself or in the selection/genetics? I know everything goes together and there is no silver bullet but more in the machine gun you use to shoot em with!  Guess I'm just being the devils advocate here...... Sorry


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## BWrangler

Hi Guys,

I'm going to share one more experience.

Ever wonder when one has enough small cell evidence? I'd visited the Lusby. Looked at a few of their hives and found only one varroa mite. No signs of PMS, varroa fecal deposits, etc. were seen.

Once my hives got into equilibrium with the mites, I would see a couple in a mite tray. But maybe once or twice a year I'd actually see a mite on a bee. It was an extraordinary sight.

Even though I don't read, think or count mites, I don't put a bag over my head concerning them either. Two instances caught me by surprise.

The first one occurred when I shuffled the broodnest comb in my top bar hive while attempting to stimulate straighter comb production. 

The second occurred when I observed bees chasing some mites out the entrance of a standard Lang small cell hive which had thrived without treatment for 6 years. My first thought was that I'd finally found a combination of factors that busted my small cell ideas.

But upon close inspection, I found it was the result of my own mangling. I run my hives in 3 deeps. In my area, nobody else does. So, I reduced them to 2 deeps. Split them. And made up the difference with some extra equipment, in preparation for my move from Wyoming to Florida. Turns out some of that extra equipment contained large cell comb. It was probably the same stuff I used to unregress my bees on earlier. I thought I'd given it all away after the test. But not so. A few boxes escaped the process. So, I repeated that test again, inadvertantly. And I got the same results.

Regards
Dennis


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## russbee

I found no difference is mite loads using small cell. One test yard I set up used half small cell the other half reg. foundation. Found both to have a equal amt of mites.


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## Joseph Clemens

Russbee, are you certain the small cell foundation was uniformly drawn out to 4.9mm or smaller?


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## BjornBee

Michael Bush said:


> >
> 
> I have NEVER said that "small cell is an effective control for AFB". I have no idea where you got that. I am merely offering a possible mechanism to explain Dee Lusby's claim that it is.



Ok, I'm back.

MB,
My comments about AFB were based on several comments over the years by you suggesting that smallcell handles AFB. I never said you said those EXACT words. Just the intent.

On the following thread, you reference Lusby's claim that when she went to smallcell, her AFB went away. Never a mention that it was comb changeover. And you added a little part about thinking smallcell does more than just v-mites or t-mites. (first post) Taken as whole, it suggests that smallcell handled afb.

I responded that it was NOT smallcell that handled AFB, but was the changeover to new comb. A big difference than just the simple vague comment, even if just "repeating" something from Lusby, that smallcell handles AFB.

Interestingly, you offer a secondary explanation as if this was good enough after my response. You then suggest a second opinion that smallcell handles AFB, by associating smallcell with stress diseases. As if LC causes stress and allows AFB to be promoted, and SC allows bees to not get AFB due to less stress.

The whole smallcell changing over comb is not mention till later, and is separate from the vague intial claims that smallcell handles AFB, for various reasons.

My comments were a culmination of many suggestion throughout the years that smallcell handles AFB. I merely commented that at least we are beyond promoting this. That at least you have some research article to cling too, even if its based on AFB control using bees to chew comb off in some unknown time-frame.

You can read your comments on page 1. It leaves no doubt you made many suggesting, and were happy to repeat vague comments from Lusby, as long as you promoted smallcell.

Read what I'm talking about here. Read MB's first couple posts....

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=200348&highlight=smallcell


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## Michael Bush

>I found no difference is mite loads using small cell. One test yard I set up used half small cell the other half reg. foundation. Found both to have a equal amt of mites.

Which is what Jennifer Berry did also. I quoted these, but apparently no one has read them so I will point out that there is RESEARCH to show that the mite levels WILL even out in the same yard.

For the full text of these studies:

http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/oAAnR3...Lu-vaZz_YEZACG1VzMUyK4/VarroaTestApiaries.pdf

If you don't wish to join the organics group, then PM me and I will email it to you.

The numbered bullet points are from Eric Osterlund. As you can see there are studies to prove that the Varroa populations DO equalize between colonies.

From ERIC concerning the studies he quoted:

1. the first paper was presented at Apimondia 2003

(INFLUENCE OF VARROA DESTRUCTOR ON FLIGHT BEHAVIOUR OF
INFESTED BEES
Jasna Kralj, [email protected],
Stefan Fuchs, [email protected])

"There is some further evidence that foragers’ behavior is
changed by mite parasitism. Infestation is lower in workers returning from forage than in workers
leaving the colony (Fuchs and Kutschker, 2000, Kralj and Fuchs, 2002). This finding implies that a part
2 of unknown mite mortality could be explained by losing mites during foraging and/or an increased loss
of infested foragers compared to uninfested foragers. In our study we focused on the question whether
workers infested by Varroa destructor more often do not return than uninfested workers. We thus
determined daily bees’ losses in infested colony during season. Additionally we focused on the
question whether flight behavior of workers infested as adults is changed by mite parasitism. In
particular we determined flight duration of workers and compared homing ability of infested and
uninfested workers."

"Results of the present study showed that flight behaviour of workers is changed by parasitism of
Varroa destructor on adults. Prolonged flights could be caused by impaired homing ability of diseased
workers, which could additionally cause forager’s loss. It is not clear if workers did not return to the
colony drift to other colonies or simply get lost and die. In the perspective of the colony such changed
behavior of parasitised workers could result in decreased colony infestation. Not to return to the colony
could be a strategy of bees to eliminate the mite constituting a new resistance mechanism against
diseases in honeybees."


2. The second is mentioning that a part of the colonies in an apiary were one autumn treated with an effective miticide, while the rest were not treated. Next autumn when all were treated there was no difference between the two groups. A quote from Journal of Apicultural
Research 31 (3/4): 157-164(1992) Korpela Seppo, Aaehus Aasne, Fries Ingemar, Hansen
Henrik: Varroa Jacobsoni Oud. In cold climates: population growth, winter mortality and
influence of the survival of honey bee colonies: ”After treating five colonies of group 1 in
autumn 1990, the mite populations in treated colonies equalized during late summer and
auutumn 1991 probably because of drifting and robbing as suggested by Sakofski et al (1990),
Büchler and Hoffmann (1991) and Greatti et al (1992).”

So you can all see that the scientific community have had this information for years and still
they design tests that do away with any possible results.

3. The third is a table from two years with untreated colonies. The first year when the mite
pressure is lower the swarms from these colonies have significantly lower mite populations.
The second year when the mite pressure is higher there is no difference. The mites evens out
much better when the mite pressure is high of course.

4. The fourth is tables from a small test between 5.1 and 5.4 mm cell size colonies, initially 7
colonies in each. The first year when the mite population was small there was no difference in
mite populations between the two groups. The second year when the mite populations were
bigger there was higher mite loads in the big cell size group in the middle of the summer. But
in the autumn when the flow was over there was no difference….. Of course the two groups
were placed in the same apiary.

5. The fifth table is from a test by Rinderer et al showing mite populations in control
(domestic) and Russian colonies in the same apiary. When the controls were all dead the mite
in the Russians decreased


----------



## Michael Bush

>My comments about AFB were based on several comments over the years by you suggesting that smallcell handles AFB. I never said you said those EXACT words. Just the intent.

In case there is any confusion over my intent (which you apparently have) my intent is merely to suggest that there may be a mechanism for Dee's claim.

>On the following thread, you reference Lusby's claim that when she went to smallcell, her AFB went away.

Because that is her claim. Is that not a fact?

>Never a mention that it was comb changeover.

And you seem to fail to realize it was not her FIRST comb changover. She had already changed ALL of it to 5.1mm and then 5o 5.0mm and after the AFB she went to 4.9mm.

>And you added a little part about thinking smallcell does more than just v-mites or t-mites. (first post) Taken as whole, it suggests that smallcell handled afb.

You can and obviously will, take it however you like. I am not now nor was I then suggesting that small cell does or does not handle AFB. But Dee certainly thinks it was what cleared up the last of her issues with healthy bees when she AGAIN changed over her combs to get to 4.9mm.

>I responded that it was NOT smallcell that handled AFB, but was the changeover to new comb. A big difference than just the simple vague comment, even if just "repeating" something from Lusby, that smallcell handles AFB.

So what was different about her LAST comb changover as opposed to the previous ones?

>Interestingly, you offer a secondary explanation as if this was good enough after my response.

You implied there was no other reasonable explaination. I am saying there may be.

>You then suggest a second opinion that smallcell handles AFB, by associating smallcell with stress diseases. As if LC causes stress and allows AFB to be promoted, and SC allows bees to not get AFB due to less stress.

Another possible mechanism.

>My comments were a culmination of many suggestion throughout the years that smallcell handles AFB. I merely commented that at least we are beyond promoting this.

I have never been promoting it.

>That at least you have some research article to cling too, even if its based on AFB control using bees to chew comb off in some unknown time-frame.

I have had trouble finding the full text of Grout's research. If anyone knows where it might be available I would love to get a copy.

>You can read your comments on page 1. It leaves no doubt you made many suggesting, and were happy to repeat vague comments from Lusby, as long as you promoted smallcell.

I repeat what people who have had problems I have not and have come up with solutions that I have not as exactly what they are. Their ideas. You apparently read a lot more into it.


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## Michael Bush

>4. Assuming that small cell works (and I don't claim to know that it works or not), I have a hard time believing that it is due to shorter capping times. I buy the idea that capping times are shorter. I do not understand why knocking a day off of the capping time would make a difference.

The mites infest the cell shortly before it's capped. If they miss that window they will not infest the cell. Mites reproduce a new mite every 32 to 36 hours after that but those mites have to make it to maturity and mate in order to be viable. In 21 days only 1 and occasional 2 ever make it. At 19 days, only none to 1 make it.

>5. ...Maybe there is some substance that more present in drone cell and even less present in small cell cells. Maybe the mites just naturally want to go to big cells (like A. Ceranae drone cells) and the smaller the cell the less attracted they are. Maybe smaller cells just get the mites confused, making them pass up the worker cells to wait for something bigger, which they are genetically programmed to like better. I doubt anybody has ever done that sort of study, and I'm not sure how it would be done. In any event, I don't think that the lack of known explanation means that there is no possible explanation.

The attraction to larger cells is well documented. One of Dee's theories is that the mites are confused by the large cell and believe they are drones.


----------



## MichaelW

Lots to catch up on,

first. Why are there still speculations and questions on what Jennifer Berry said. Its posted on the internet here, in case you missed it the last time I posted it.
http://www.heartlandbees.com/index.htm

I stand corrected. Dennis has done comparisons between large and small cell. Your website made me take small cell more seriously than anything else I've read. I would have liked to see the data in a scientific journal article. 

Sounds like others are doing comparisons as well like Bjornbee and russbee with different results. Thats something to consider.

Shorter pre-capping times would likely affect varroa reproduction due to the short window that the cells are actually attracted to varroa. The varroa seem to be only attracted to the cells during a short period of time prior to capping. HOWEVER, if this attraction window was moved back relative to a shortened pre-capping time, it would have no difference. Boot and Callis did alot of work on this while finding that cells Larger than 5.4mm had a shorter attraction period. This was contemporary to the development of ANP comb, which eventually flopped. They did not test cells smaller than 5.4mm.

Shorter post capping time could reduce a third "clutch" or whatever you call it of mite eggs from developing to reproductives. It could slightly reduce mite numbers over time. Work has been done to breed bees with a shorter post capping time with some success. But I think more success has been had breeding for SMR and hygienic.

A capping time experiment on small cell would be interesting and not real hard to develop. It just takes some time, a library, journal literature search on Boot and Calis and Beetsma would show a good way to do it. The book "Asian Apiculture: Proceedings of the first international conference on the Asian honey bee and bee mites" is good start. I was going to do it but don't have time. But again an important point for pre-capping is the "attraction period". If it moves with the pre-capping time, the pre-capping time will make no difference whatsoever.

As far as I know, the only observation small cell has any affect on capping time is what Michael Bush has observed. I've never seen anyone else make such an observations, but plenty of people on this board quote it as gospel which is pretty annoying, especially seeing no clear documentation of procedure is presented with redundant replications, etc. Boot and Calis's work shows that cell size (larger) does effect the attraction period so small cell could effect attraction period as well, but it might effect it opposite what you might think.


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## BjornBee

MichaelW,
I agree with what you said. The only problem I see, is the question "How many years do you need to experiment to see results of less mites(based on capping times)?"

Nobody questions that her (J. Berry) bees were on smallcell. So why would she not see an impact of less mites within the first year, over multiple brood cycles?

I'm just going on my own thought process and rationalization, but it seems to me that if you can't see reduced mites within the first year, then the whole idea is questionable.

Maybe someone with all these websites and data (Barry excluded) can explain why it would take two or three years to see mite reduction based on shorter capping times. 

I would think this could be seen within a year after several cycles, but apparently not. I'm not sure why.

It's no surprise to me that we now ask that several years be given to see mite reduction based on capping times. For obvious reasons. You can figure it out.


----------



## BjornBee

MB, You promote it by the mere fact that you have over and over, repeated the same comments from D. Lusby, and other vague claims and suggestions, all with little support or research.

If your not promoting the idea, then why refer back to it so many times. I know its nice to keep suggesting that its someone Else's comments, and that's your "out". But you cling to these comments by others over and over, and thus give credibility to them. Some may even suggest by doing so, that you use these other people's comment in some way to promote the very same thoughts and ideas.

Come on. Its easy to see....


----------



## MichaelW

Two of the studies Michael Bush quotes are

Then there is the issue of male survivorship:
http://www.apidologie.org/index.php...29&url=/articles/apido/pdf/2002/01/Martin.pdf

That study is on the Cape bee. It proposes a valid question and tells why that question is valid, but in no way begins to answer the question in Mellifera. 

This study
http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.com/~meettheancestors/Varroa.html
has the statement,
"The purpose of this paper is to explain the consistently higher mite fall on the small cell worker comb, which was repeated over four consecutive years"
then goes on, in a few sentences, to tell you why you are not seeing what you are seeing. More mites for 4 years but its really less mites, yea right! I see it was published in the peer reviewed www. I guess the editors where sleeping.


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## Barry

russbee said:


> I found no difference is mite loads using small cell. One test yard I set up used half small cell the other half reg. foundation. Found both to have a equal amt of mites.


Hmm, see a correlation here with the test Berry did?


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## TwT

I was wondering, did J. Berry say they were on the same yard with large cell bee's? Billy Bob should post here because he could fill in how old the hives were and probably answer a few more questions about the test.... Billlllllllllyyyyy Booooooobbbbbbb!!!!!!!!!! where you at??????


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## MichaelW

BjornBee said:


> MichaelW,
> I agree with what you said. The only problem I see, is the question "How many years do you need to experiment to see results of less mites(based on capping times)?"


Yea, I too think you should see something significant in one year, the way that Jennifer Beery did it. A study that looked only at capping times WITH attraction period could be done in a few months in observation hives. Then, you could make inferences and calculations on what those difference could do to varroa populations. 

Small cell or foundationless either works or it dosen't in my opinion and you should be able to see something in a year (the way that Jennifer Berry did it), but additional years would increase the likelihood of accurate results and who knows maybe something is going on that compounds over multiple years?

At then end of my foundationless SARE experiment we will have 3 years at the bee yard at my house with foundationless management present. Then I'll probably have enough frames already prepared to carry out the comparison another 2 years just to see what happens with about 10hives with and 10 hives without foundation. To me, it will be interesting no matter what the results are, but I prefer that it will work.


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## MichaelW

Twt, if you watch this http://www.heartlandbees.com/index.htm you will hear that they where in the same yard. 

The back of my head shows up a time or two to the left.


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## TwT

Barry said:


> Thirdly, to try and make a claim as TWT has and Cindy Bee that beekeepers can use the long standing equipment (LC comb) and be successful keeping bees without ANY treatments or unusual manipulations for many years deserves to be headline news. In fact I think I'll put that on the home page of Beesource. I don't know why all the hubbub with 99 percent of beekeepers not being able to do this. I think Jennifer Berry did a study on the wrong bee hives!
> 
> - Barry


all I did was state the truth and I do nothing special but take honey and feed when I have too, I would find it very hard to believe that 99% of beeks dont do this, If I am the only one doing this then maybe I should have scientist everywhere here or be signing autograph's, I do know J. Berry and UGA have hives they select and breed from that aren't treated and on regular cell, thats what the UGA honey bee project is about, small cell might help a lot with mites and im not going to bash it but I do know that my bee's live without it and I am sure there are many more beeks out there doing the same as I am, I have always believed that in the end bee genetics will be the thing that saves bee's... just nature taking its course.... IMHO that is !!!!


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## BjornBee

MichaelW,
Concerning your SARE grant, Are you, or how are you, compensating for difference in queen changeover?

I guess you can keep tabs on the data on the individual hives, so you can note any changes out of the ordinary as queens may come and go. I mention this because you suggest a 5 year period for data collection. Even one or two queens being changed could throw the data off one way or the other.

Good luck and Thank you for taking the time and effort..... 

I had to make the decision to either note the change on my info sheets, and thus explain any differences in data "spikes", or decide to requeen by the yard, so all yards remained with the same quality/age/genetics of queens, and thus posed variations within the queen pool being used.

Anytime you go over the workable limit of an individual queen, the data can get fuzzy.


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## TwT

MichaelW said:


> Twt, if you watch this http://www.heartlandbees.com/index.htm you will hear that they where in the same yard.
> 
> The back of my head shows up a time or two to the left.



Thanks!!!! I was wondering were that came from..


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## MichaelW

Bjornbee, I plan to requeen all hives in the spring from the same producer. At the same time I'll pull splits and give the bees the opportunity to build new comb and hopefully prevent swarming. 

We will be measuring comb built this year and next year to see if its any smaller next year than it is this year, what size it is, etc. The comb built next year will be from bees not influenced by foundation for a 3rd year.

For purposes of the SARE project, the data used to analyze "if it works or not" will be about one single year, starting this winter and continuing through the next winter, taking data on each hive. If the new queens swarm despite pulling splits, well that will suck, and I'll have to compensate for that. Either eliminating some hives from data analysis, or keeping some queens back to replace the swarmed queens, or some other option. I guess thats always a problem doing bee tests. We have another yard that is a year behind, but will be included. In all there should be about 30 hives in the data analysis over two locations, tracking about one year of mite and bee populations for the SARE project.

The 5 year out time frame (the 2 years after the end of the study), would be more of casual observations and not really a part of a serious study. Although at that point, it will be pretty easy to just do some mite counts and hive strength counts and get some reliable data, providing I keep treating them all the same.


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## Barry

BjornBee said:


> It's no surprise to me that we now ask that several years be given to see mite reduction based on capping times. For obvious reasons. You can figure it out.


If you got the time, spend an evening searching through the bee-l archives many years back and you will find time and time again the expressed need for those going SC to give it a few years to work through the change over. Also, search through the BioBee archives (incomplete at this time) and find the same thing. Your perspective is short sighted. This has been going on for many years now.

- Barry


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## BjornBee

Barry, Please, I'm asking questions. Remember, you said my hands were not dirty enough. So please spare me.

Now I make a statement, and you suggest that I go back and read archives. If you don't want to answer questions, fine. I've moved on. My comment was based solely on the fact that I feel mite reduction should be able to be seen within the first year. I made a comment and posed a question for anyone wanting to take a stab. You of course, have already stated you have no intentions of answering basic questions on your own site.

So instead of claiming anyone is shortsighted, how about just letting anyone else, who happens to want to answer questions, answer them?

What? Likes it some big secret or rocket science based data, to suggest that someone can't mention in simple words, the answer to a simple question? Like it takes scanning archives and research articles, instead of someone just volunteering the answer?

Anyone besides Barry please......


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## MichaelW

I've done mite counts this year. Both groups are about the same in mite numbers, but foundation less comb was still present in the hives with foundation until a few months ago when I started doing counts. So it dosen't really say much. I started all the hives with foundationless nucs. One hive, a foundationless hive, reached the economic threshold so I'm treating all the hives (Apilife-Var) to get the mite numbers equalized before I start the period of time that will be included in the data analysis.

One thing I did notice is that last fall we had DWV, and mites obvious on inspection. Drought, and neglect, starved about half the bees, then I treated with Apigaurd. This year I can't believe how few mites there are. 10 mites would be the average in all hives except the one that reached economic threshold. I could claim that the foundationless conversion last year got rid of my mite problem, but there is no comparisons, so I would not suggest such a thing. So with the SARE grant we are moving some hives back to 5.4mm foundation to see what happens.

I also measured comb building rate on foundationless and foundation hives this year. I have to figure out how to analyze the data and I'll post something about it. I predict the results don't agree with what proponents of foundation or proponents of foundationless say. Its somewhere in between, possibly no difference in rate.


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## MichaelW

BjornBee said:


> Anyone besides Barry please......


If reading archives counts, I've read plenty about these ideas. The way Jennifer Berry did it should have worked. Michael Bush says that putting bees on wax dipped permacomb instantly regresses the bees. She put regressed (and non-regressed) bees on pre-drawn, clean small cell and large cell comb, measuring every single comb to be sure. I still would like to see her keep doing counts on those hives another years, but its a pretty darn good method and in my opinion should have worked if it works. But she said more should be done and I agree. It shouldn't be the final word, but I take it pretty seriously.


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## Barry

BjornBee said:


> I made a comment and posed a question for anyone wanting to take a stab.


When you add comments like "It's no surprise to me that we now ask that several years be given to see mite reduction based on capping times. For obvious reasons. You can figure it out.", your seriousness and integrity in the question falls flat. You had me up until that comment.

- Barry


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## BjornBee

Barry,
In your own words, if that all it takes, would that not be considered "shortsighted". 

"I had you up til that comment". Not sure if that shows how easy it was for me to "had" you, or how easy it was for you to get sidetracked?

Come on Barry. If you don't want to answer questions, I already said "fine". But your really going places that I didn't expect.


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## BjornBee

MichaelW said:


> If reading archives counts, I've read plenty about these ideas. The way Jennifer Berry did it should have worked. Michael Bush says that putting bees on wax dipped permacomb instantly regresses the bees. She put regressed (and non-regressed) bees on pre-drawn, clean small cell and large cell comb, measuring every single comb to be sure. I still would like to see her keep doing counts on those hives another years, but its a pretty darn good method and in my opinion should have worked if it works. But she said more should be done and I agree. It shouldn't be the final word, but I take it pretty seriously.



I agree.....


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## BWrangler

Hi Guys,

>Yea, I too think you should see something significant in one year....

Early on, small cell beekeepers observed small cell colonies became increasingly efficient at removing mites during the second and third seasons. Some speculated that the colony learns and becomes more efficient through time. 

I thought about testing this idea. But I can barely read and I can't type, especially late at night. And I couldn't teach my bees to read anything at all. So, no tests for the bees :>)

Regards
Dennis


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## Kieck

I hate to jump in here, but I think you guys are missing a couple "science" points.

First, "significantly more" bees, in a statistical sense, may not mean as much as what you assume. For example, if all the bees in 100 "large-cell" hives were counted, and the mean (average) was 25,000 with a range of 24,999 to 25,001, and if all the bees in 100 "small-cell" hives were counted, with a mean of 25,010 and a range of 25,009 to 25,011, the difference is statistically significant. Ten, out of roughly 25,000, can be statistically significant, if the variability is low and the sample size is large enough.

Practically, though, would you care as a beekeeper if the hypothetical numbers I posted were true?

Secondly, the reason for having the two treatments (large-cell and small-cell) in the same yards is for control. Having a yard of purely small-cell and a separate yard of purely large-cell doesn't control for differences in habitat. Maybe the large-cell bees are in an area of better forage. Maybe the small-cell bees are. This can be "corrected" is several ways, most obviously by either mixing the two treatments in one yard, or by having many, many more yards (and, therefore, many, many more hives). Since funding in science is often a severely limiting factor, putting the two treatments into one yard makes sense.


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## Kieck

> Early on, small cell beekeepers observed small cell colonies became increasingly efficient at removing mites during the second and third seasons. Some speculated that the colony learns and becomes more efficient through time. -bwrangler


Why wouldn't the same learning appear in "large-cell" bees, so long as they survived?


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## NeilV

*More musings from a newbee*

I originally posted this:

"Maybe smaller cells just get the mites confused, making them pass up the worker cells to wait for something bigger, which they are genetically programmed to like better. I doubt anybody has ever done that sort of study, and I'm not sure how it would be done. In any event, I don't think that the lack of known explanation means that there is no possible explanation."


MB responded with this:

"The attraction to larger cells is well documented. One of Dee's theories is that the mites are confused by the large cell and believe they are drones."


I reply with this:

That's an interesting idea. I always thought that Apis Ceranae were bigger than EHBs, mainly because the varroa mites are so big. However, the Bee Journal article mentioned in my above post says that A. Ceranae are smaller than EHB. I wonder what the average cell size is for a A. Ceranae worker cell and drone cell. Anybody have any idea? Would be interesting if: (1) as reported in Bee Journal, varroa only go after A. Ceranae drone larvae; (2) A. Ceranae drone cells are about the size of large cell foundation; and (3) A. Ceranae worker cells are closer to 4.9 mm. (I have no idea whether any of those assertions are right.) It does seem at least plausible that mites who naturally infect only drone cells might be tricked/confused into not infesting smaller cells, choosing instead to wait and keep waiting for a better, larger cell to infect. 

Also, did Ms. Berry's study determine how/where in the hives the mites were reproducing. For example, could the mite load found in the SC hives in the study have been reproducing mainly in the drone cells in that hive, whereas the mites were affecting worker and drone cells in the large cell hive? Not sure if it would make a difference on the overall hive health if the mites were focusing solely on drone cells as opposed to also getting in worker cells. If she tore apart the hive to count mites, then she should have seen where they were reproducing.

However, I still think that the bottm line is that the results of Ms. Berry's study do not jive with the actual experience of SC users who use untreated bees (including me), which is that the actual NUMBER of mites is low. However, the results of one study also do not negate the actual experience of SC beekeepers, who have adopted a system that eliminates mite related problems. To me this is an area that really warrants more study. I just worry that, due to limited funds and other pressing issues (CCD), this issue will get put on an indefinite back burner. 

BTW, to MB. I understand the concept about shorter capping times and window of opportunity. I just don't think it makes sense, since those little mite legs can really move. Even if there is a shorter window for mites to infest a hive, I still think they would have plenty of time to accomplish their mission, at least when there is a whole block of open cells to pick from. That's just my gut feeling on the question.


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## BWrangler

Hi Guys,

Just got my bee mags today. There's an interesting article in Bee Culture by Jennifer Berry describing the economic and political problems she's encountered while trying to do bee research. It's an interesting and informative read.

>Why wouldn't the same learning appear in "large-cell" bees, so long as they survived?

I've wondered the same thing. Could it have been possible to run large cell bees untreated and sustain losses until a mite tolerant bee survives. Others in the US have tried it. Some with limited success. From recent reports, it appears that South African and some South American beekeepers have done just that. But they run bees on a smaller cell size. And they make extensive use of Ahb ferals.

When mites first appeared, I didn't experience any mite detection, removal, or significant mite damage in my large cell hives. And I looked, sometimes with a magnifying glass, to select such bees. But all would have perished without treatment. And most eventually would have perished with it. Keeping treated beehives stocked, after the mites, was a serious problem for beekeepers and a windfall for package producers. When I saw the dramatic change in bee behavior. All my hives got a small cell makeover.

Survival was the key component to small cell beekeeping. Bees could be kept in clean hives which conveyed numerous benefits such as better overwintering, faster spring buildup, less disease and queen problems, and more honey production.

Whatever mechanism is triggered by small cell also exposes them to a new learning environment. That stimulus is missing in large cell colonies. Could bees be found that initiate the mite cleansing behavior at acceptable levels on large cell comb? Maybe. The Baton Rouge guys are working on it. And it might be available in the future. But with small cell you can have it now, with any bee you choose.

Regards
Dennis


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## Bizzybee

I'll have to check the mailbox bwrangler. Thanks for the heads up!

T, poor ole Billy is up to his eyeballs with work and school, never mind the bees! I'm sure he doesn't get a chance to come by to often. He'll answer his email though. Then again he probably thinks that Jennifer is a big girl and can take care of herself in this crowd. 

MB, BW thanks for your candor! I think your dedication, knowledge and commitment are admirable to the cause of small cell. I'm not hearing or reading anything new I don't believe. And I don't doubt the success that you have experienced. I have been seeing it myself.

I think in my own mind, to some degree I have come to except small cell or probably more so the selection and continued breeding of survivor bees of any breed or mix can and does produce bees that are resistant to more than just mites.

That leads me to this end however. And what has cast doubt in my mind of the actual benefit of small cell is the report from Jennifer. But even before their results of the study. Is the fact that I have steadily noticed in hives that are on large cell dropping in mite numbers drastically. 

I can see the point of mites being transferred from infested hives to the sc hives. That being when they are in very close proximity(same yard). I have seen the drift between hives and don't know if a lot of folks realize just how much drifting occurs. The thing is though, unlike the instance of the UGA study where your concern of the infested lc bees (assumed, and with good reason possibly) carrying the mites to the sc bees. Thus evening the distribution of the mites among all of the hives. In my case, it's that I'm not seeing my sc bees are carrying a heavy load of mites equal to that of the lc bees. My sc hives far out number the lc hives. But it's more that I don't see heavy mite loads on the lc bees. And not only not heavy, but not existent in some of those hives. At least when I have checked. And I don't see any evidence of their being there.

Why is that? I have no idea. I can only assume that those bees being handled in the same manner as the sc bees, ie. no treatments, screened BB's, clean wax (healthy bees IMO) and propagation from survivor stock. Are these bees building resistance to the mites without the sc? 

These are just really just observations. I am by no means in a position to be as dedicated to the details as some of you are. I make no claims to being even a hair on the head of a true researcher! But I have seen enough to give the doubt to have the need to learn more about the situation. And I do intend to put more effort into satisfying my doubt. 

Seems kinda funny to me, maybe not some, that I'm looking for some lc research for verification instead of sc research. 

It's all the same to me. Whatever works is my motto! It's all good..........


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## Michael Bush

>Secondly, the reason for having the two treatments (large-cell and small-cell) in the same yards is for control. Having a yard of purely small-cell and a separate yard of purely large-cell doesn't control for differences in habitat.

Of course. If they didn't then that would be a variable, but as I just quoted there is quite a bit of research on how the mites are redistributed throughout the beeyard and that may be a much bigger issue than the habitat difference. In fact some of that is that Varroa infested bees are MORE prone to drift.


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## MichaelW

Then please explain how different mite counts from sticky sheets where found in these same yards testing simple IPM strategies below. This is just one. Every single mite study on a "treatment" (hygenic, biotechnical, chemical) uses bees in the same yard and somehow they determine different mite levels due to the treatment, when the treatment works, even treatments as simple as smoking hives with cresote bush smoke.

Integrated pest management against
Varroa destructor reduces colony mite levels
and delays treatment threshold
Journal of Apicultural Research 44(4): 157–162 (2005)
KEITH S DELAPLANE,1* JENNIFER A BERRY,1 JOHN A SKINNER,2 JAMES P PARKMAN2 ANDW MICHAEL HOOD3

SUMMARY
Two independent, long-term (17 months and 87 weeks) studies were done to appraise the effects of published
integrated pest management (IPM) practices on colony varroa mite levels, length of time before onset of
treatment threshold, and other measures of colony productivity. Screen hive floors tended to reduce colony
mite levels (24-h sticky sheet counts), sometimes significantly. Likewise, mite-resistant queens tended to cause a
numeric and sometimes significant reduction in mite levels; number of mites on sticky sheets decreased as the
percentage expression of hygienic behaviour in a colony increased, and on the majority of sampling episodes
the number of mites retrieved on sticky sheets was numerically lower in colonies with queens expressing
suppressed mite reproduction (SMR). In six of eight cases when IPM components were found to interact they
did so in a manner favourable to mite control. Time until achieving treatment threshold was significantly
delayed in colonies with SMR queens (c. 72 weeks) compared to non-selected queens (59). In one experiment,
stored honey was significantly reduced in colonies with screens (3.8 frames) compared to solid floors (5.1);
likewise, stored pollen was lower in screen colonies (0.9 frames) than on solid floors (1.3). SMR queens tended
to have reduced brood production.


"Within each apiary, each colony randomly
received one of the following experimental treatments: (1) a
queen selected for hygienic behaviour, conventional solid hive
floor, (2) hygienic queen, screen floor, (3) non-selected queen,
solid floor, or (4) non-selected queen, screen floor"


----------



## BjornBee

MichaelW,
I'm guessing that out of the bag of denial, we will hear of selection #4. #4 is to suggest that the study was not long enough to be of any significant value. I believe the standard playbook will be used. #4 is my guess...


----------



## beemandan

Michael Bush said:


> If they didn't then that would be a variable, but as I just quoted there is quite a bit of research on how the mites are redistributed throughout the beeyard and that may be a much bigger issue than the habitat difference. In fact some of that is that Varroa infested bees are MORE prone to drift.


Sorry that I haven't been able to follow this entire thread.
In each of the 2006 and 2007 yards there were 20 hives. 10 small cell and 10 traditional cell. (40 total hives) The hives were placed a minimum of 5 feet apart. Was there SOME drift? Certainly. Was it predominantly from the regular cell to the small cell? I don't think so. Was it of large enough numbers to skew the results? No way. 

We really have beaten this dead horse haven't we? Those folks who believe that small cell works will never accept these data. Those who don't believe in small cell will. Jennifer knew, going in to this, that regardless of the results, there would likely be two, very polarized, groups; one accepting the data, one insisting that it was flawed. The study was well designed and the data are clear. They don't say small cell doesn't work. They say that in these TWO studies that small cell did not have any significant, positive impact on mite levels. Nothing more, nothing less. Anyone who'd like is always welcome to conduct their own study but, frankly, I can't imagine that anyone would get any results that someone won't question.


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## Billy Bob

Sorry, for not posting sooner Ted.

It took me off and on two days to read through the entire thread. I almost have a head ache reading through all the snarling and gashing.

For those of you who have questions…

1. You need to view the video of Jennifer Berry’s lecture; it should answer most of your questions. (thanks Michael W)
http://www.heartlandbees.com/index.htm

2. After viewing the video if you still have questions please feel free to post them here. Just so long as you Bee nice…

The results of the sc research didn’t come out the way I wanted. I don’t think it came out the way anyone wanted, but neither I nor Jennifer can change the results, and that’s research. It doesn’t matter how I feel or what I want.

I have some ideas of my own, but that’s all they are ideas or better speculations. The colonies are still up and operating, with no treatments being conducted (yes both LC and SC). If the sc works then it should work within the first year. I have some ideas for continued research next year, but it is not 100% my decision. I am however, confident that the results of this year’s research is accurate. 

Our research showed that the SC colonies had a higher mite drop than the LC colonies. It didn’t tell us why they dropped, if they were mature, immature, mated, not mated, or anything else. 

I have not seen the colonies in a couple of months so I can’t even tell you how they (both LC and SC) are doing. I’ll try to either go by or ask Jennifer when I get a chance.


On another note (same subject) I read some of you speaking about shorter capping times. It was my understanding that it was about shorter emerging times. After a cell is capped the mite only has a limited about of time to climb out from under the bee larva, lay eggs, let the eggs hatch, the baby mites mature, then mate. That’s why the varroa mite does so well on drone brood, it takes 24 days to emerge. On average the mites raised (I’m not going to reference this) in drone, brood is 2.7 mites and 1.8 in worker brood. Since the development time for the mite is so close to the development time of the worker brood “if” you could get your workers to emerge just a few hours (much less a day) earlier this could (would) have an impact on the mites.

BB


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## Bizzybee

"After viewing the video if you still have questions please feel free to post them here. Just so long as you Bee nice…"

Yeah right dude!! You wear the bullseye on your forehead just like everybody else there buddy!

You come back now and take yer medicine like a real beek!


----------



## beemandan

Bizzybee said:


> Yeah right dude!! You wear the bullseye on your forehead just like everybody else there buddy!
> 
> You come back now and take yer medicine like a real beek!


Yeah, he did squeeze out of that didn't he? Not only that, he waited until the real furor died down. And he says he likes his bees mean!


----------



## Billy Bob

Mean bees are much easier to deal with than mean people!

Besides, with the bees I can smoke them or if it really gets bad I can always walk away without the bees thinking less of me. lol


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## MichaelW

Here something I hadn't seen before

Fries (1994). Does the size of wax cells influence the reproduction of Varroa mites?. Apidologie 25: 478-479.

its a short communication type thing, no methods or much specifics given.

treatments;
combs in dm2
640
770
820
900

Parameters investigated;
1. duration of post capping period = no difference between treatments
2. weight of pupae = differed, smaller size has smaller purple eye pupae
3. reproduction of varroa mites, measuring;
a. adult male + adult female
b. female only
c. male only
d. protonymph only
e. no reproduction
= Frequency distribution differed significantly between cell sizes
= No significant difference in the proportion of mites without progeny between cell sizes

they don't say in what way the proportions differed which seems to be an obvious thing one would want to know. At this time, other folks where looking at cells larger than 5.4mm to reduce the attraction period the varroa are attracted to cells.

so who good with math knows what 900 dm2 is in mm?

I think 800 is 5.375mm.


----------



## Barry

It all depends!

http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/conversionchart.htm


----------



## JaiPea

At the risk of being repetitive, here is a synopsis of the preceding thread.

A) Where are there no rebuttals to the Berry study?

What is there to rebut? In this short (to date) study the only rebuttal could be to slam the researcher. That beeks who believe in small cell have not speaks more about their manners than anything else. Their reaction has been along the lines of 'that does not concur with my long term observations'.

B) Why is there no list of reasons why small cell is successful?

Empirical observation is a precursor to reasoned scientific analysis. To scientifically derive a proofset of reasons about small cell would require an expensive long term study, and there is little incentive to do so. Why would any CEO authorize spending money to prove a benefit that his company could not earn a profit from?

C) Is small cell a belief (religion) or a fact?

Small cell may be like a religion to some, but that is nieether a requirement nor a barrier to thinking it might be worth trying. As an earlier post pointed out, some knowledge is a fact by empirical observation and not proof:
Q: How does aspirin work?
A: We don't know.
Q: Does aspirin work?
A: Yes.

History and Economics:
- In the beginning the writings of Lusby caused a stir with it's unconventional take on how to manage bees.
- The few who believed (or were willing to try) encountered difficulties but eventually prevailed in accomplishing a medication-free survival environment for their bees.
- The number of believers grew, and companies responded by developing products.
- Transitioning to small cell can now be done at relatively low cost and with little difficulty.

A hobbyist who wants to keep bees and doesn't like chemicals is not looking for proof. He/she is willing to try alternative approaches and if they work, they don't care why. Small cell does not need proving since it has become a tool like a queen excluder.

FWIW, substituting queen excluder for small cell could create a thread that parallels this one.
- Some use and believe
- Others scoff and don't believe


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## beemandan

JaiPea said:


> FWIW, substituting queen excluder for small cell could create a thread that parallels this one.
> - Some use and believe
> - Others scoff and don't believe


I don't know.....you ever tried to push a queen through an excluder?


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## beemandan

Does anyone remember the slick brochures that the BWeaver's put in ABJ a couple of times? Yep, they stopped treating for varroa. They endured huge losses for a number of years. But...they held their ground and ultimately prevailed. They had the cure. No talk of small cell. Buy one of their queens, put it in your varroa infested hive and voila.....your problems were solved. 

How do you suppose they accomplished that without small cell? Be careful how you answer.....I'm told that Danny Weaver is a lawyer


----------



## NeilV

*Ms. Berry's video*

I watched Ms. Berry's video, and you can tell she's a really smart scientist. Really, I think people would have a hard time criticizing the study in a legitimate way. It was really well thought out. She's a good speaker. You folks in GA who have direct access to her are fortunate. 

She obviously is not saying, "Small cell does not work." However, it is pretty clear from her comments at the end that she thinks what really is at work among non-treating beekeepers is the breeding of better bees. 

In reality, her study comes close to showing that the SC hives had more mites than the LC hives. However, the SC hives also had more total bees (in a statistically significant sense). Even with more bees, if I understood her right, the SC hives had a higher rate of mites per bee. 

Also, the bees she used were from a small cell breeder, and the mite counts in all of the hives were low. Once again, that seems, to me, to probably be the result of breeding better bees by not treating. 

Also, she presents some other studies that seem to suggest that varroa seek out drones based on something other than cell size, apparently pheremones. Interesting stuff.

If you're really interested in a non-biased (but admittedly not the final word), watch that video. 

My personal thought at the moment is that, on future hives, I want to buy some queens from a breeder that does not treat who has mite resistant bees but put them on regular cell. (So I don't think Ms. Berry's study should worry Don/FBMan too much.)

If you are really interested and can find the time, watch the video.

ndvan


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## Michael Bush

I tried not treating. I lost all my hives on three occasions. I did not breed from the survivors as there were none.

I went to small cell with commercial bees and once I got regressed (which took one year on PermaComb) I have not treated since and not had a loss of hives from Varroa since. That's not a breeding program. That's a management change. Eventually I did go to the feral survivors because I wanted locally adapted stock that would do well in our winters. I am pleased with them and the Varroa have dropped even more. But I've been expanding every year and buying packages of commercial bees that are put on small cell in the outyards and they have no Varroa issues either. Genetics? I don't know. Everyone else I know of doing small cell without changing genetics sees the same change. I don't believe Barry took huge losses to breed survivor bees. He just put his commercial bees on small cell. The same for Dennis. He took losses, yes, but he gave up on that and has regular commercial stock on small cell.

I hear people (for the first time in the last couple of years) talking about not treating who are not on small cell. What are your mite levels like? It's difficult to find any on mine now. Varroa has become a non issue for me personally. It's only an issue at all because I would love to see it become a non issue for everyone else.


----------



## Barry

beemandan said:


> Buy one of their queens, put it in your varroa infested hive and voila.....your problems were solved.


Back when I was buying queens, I bought 3 of them, put them each in a hive and within a week they all lay dead on the ground in front of the hive.


----------



## Mike Gillmore

ndvan said:


> Also, the bees she used were from a small cell breeder,...


OK, I'm getting bogged down a bit on this point. If I remember correctly, in the second series of experiments she used Bill's already regressed SC bees in all the test colonies to draw out new comb, both large and small cell. 

Now if these bees of Bill's have been successfully raised without mite problems, using no treatments of any kind, why would there be an increase in mites in this study with the small cell group? What changed? 

If I am remembering correctly, they introduced "new queens" to all the colonies for the study, both large and small cell. 

I would love to see this test repeated using all queen stock from Bill or MB in all the colonies.


----------



## Billy Bob

The reason we use my (small cell) bees during the second part of the study is because we needed to have the bees draw out large and small cell foundation. We all know what happens when you try to get large bees to draw out small cell foundation, (a real mess). We "mixed" the bees prior to installing them into packages, by shaking all the colonies into one big package. (trust me it was one of the longest days of my life...although it is an interesting thing to reach into a large cage and scoop out bees by the pound)

For obvious reasons we wanted all the queens to be related. So we used sister queens in all of the study hives. We also wanted queens that were not breed for SMR or Hygienic behavior.

In addition none of the colonies had other IPM advantages such as screen bottom boards. We didn't want anything to affect the mite counts other than the cell size.



Most of my colonies have queens that are or came from feral stock. I also have a few russian genes thrown in here and there. It's not uncommon for me to find one or more queens in my yards that are three years old. Of course I have one or two "hot" queens that were rejected from Jennifer's breeding program out at the University...I'm one of those beekeepers that like bees with an attitude.  Not to mention I run almost every colony that I have on screen BBs. 

I don't treat...nothing, nota, zip. The only thing I put into my hives are frames, foundation, and bees. They do the rest. 

Bill


----------



## beemandan

Billy Bob said:


> Of course I have one or two "hot" queens that were rejected from Jennifer's breeding program out at the University...I'm one of those beekeepers that like bees with an attitude.


Those aren't rejects! Those are Billy Bob 'Selects'. Chosen with great care (caution?).


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## beemandan

Barry said:


> Back when I was buying queens, I bought 3 of them, put them each in a hive and within a week they all lay dead on the ground in front of the hive.


I think that makes you one of the lucky ones.


----------



## Michael Bush

>I think that makes you one of the lucky ones.

 In my experience, yes. And what reason do the skeptics keep citing for Dee Lusby's bees still being alive?


----------



## beemandan

Michael Bush said:


> And what reason do the skeptics keep citing for Dee Lusby's bees still being alive?


I've read that hers aren't especially defensive. Is there any other evidence that hers don't share a........recently imported gene set with the Weavers?


----------



## Michael Bush

>I've read that hers aren't especially defensive.

I've seen hers and I've seen hotter EHB before, and I've gotten hotter bees from Texas. I would rather have bees that are gentler than hers. But I never saw her put on gloves to handle them.

> Is there any other evidence that hers don't share a........recently imported gene set with the Weavers?

She can't seem to get a straight answer when she sends samples to Europe for DNA analysis. They have rather confusing and ambiguous results. She doesn't trust results from the US labs.


----------



## peggjam

"Now if these bees of Bill's have been successfully raised without mite problems, using no treatments of any kind, why would there be an increase in mites in this study with the small cell group? What changed?"

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned mite loads that are naturally in the foraging environment of these hives. This is afterall, one of the ways that mites infest a hive. Increased loads could be easily accounted for by foraging bees bringing them into the hive from foraging activities. How many other hives were in the studies foraging area, and what were their mite loads???

Increased mite drop in the sc hives would indicate to me that the sc hives were managing the increasing levels of mites better than the lc hives were.

Any study done on sc vs lc, that does not compensate for increased mite loads within the test hives foraging areas is flawed from the start. Try finding a site that is completely free of other commercial hives in a 3 mile radius, then do your study.


----------



## MichaelW

peggjam said:


> Any study done on sc vs lc, that does not compensate for increased mite loads within the test hives foraging areas is flawed from the start.


Now how do you figure that one? Wouldn't the varroa "pressure" be even among all hives, or do small cell hives bring in significantly more mites from the field than large cell hives? They must be better at robbing collapsing colonies then large cell if that where true. If it can't work with real world varroa pressure, it doesn't work period. No hives within 3 miles? What remote part of the Southeastern United States do you suggest? 

You also said that a higher mite drop means their handling varroa better. I don't think so, but lets just go by varroa reproducing inside of capped cells and mites on the bees themselves which Jennifer measured also. All in all, there was no significant difference in mite counts using the three different methods.

I'm open to theories on why it didn't work in this study, but I haven't heard any half way plausible ones yet.


----------



## BjornBee

I have heard that a hive can in fact get mites from a random hitchhiker. So yes, a hive can become infested with mites from this vector. But its the multiplying of mites once they are in the hive that makes the load more than a few hitchhikers.

Now suggesting that an ongoing "infestation' from passing mites between forages, on some scale allowing mites between hives to show no difference in mite abilities, is really pushing the limits.

How can one hive all summer long have mites in one range, say 5 to 10, and the next hive have mites in the 50 to 100 range? Yet, I see it all the time. Hmmm. First its bees drifting between hives. Now its mites on some grand scale jumping between bees while they are foraging. I'm surprised nobody has come up with some claim that mites walk from one hive to the next. Whats next? 

I have never read, or heard, any reference to ongoing infestations of hives from forage bees bringing in mite load of this quantity. Is there some research, some study or some article that even comes close to these type suggestions? It has been suggested about hives crashing, and mite loads of some magnitude being passed. but mite loads of this scale from passing mites while foraging? Lets keep this going a while longer and see what else "develops".


----------



## peggjam

"Now how do you figure that one? Wouldn't the varroa "pressure" be even among all hives, or do small cell hives bring in significantly more mites from the field than large cell hives? They must be better at robbing collapsing colonies then large cell if that where true. If it can't work with real world varroa pressure, it doesn't work period. "

I think that varroa pressure would vary between all hives, but would proably average out over the whole yard. But that is not what matters, it is what the different hives do with the mites once they are in the hive that matters. Increased mite drop in sc hives would indicate that the sc hives were dealing with the mites in a much more effictant manner than the lc, who have less mite drop, meaning more of the mites in lc hives are making it to the cells to reproduce.

"No hives within 3 miles? What remote part of the Southeastern United States do you suggest? "

As stated, natural mite loads vary, depending on how many commercial hives you have within the foraging area. My take on sc, and the reason sc users who swear by it do so, is that over time, the natural mite loads are reduced within the hives foraging area, less mites in the foraging area equal less mites in the hives.

"You also said that a higher mite drop means their handling varroa better. I don't think so, but lets just go by varroa reproducing inside of capped cells and mites on the bees themselves which Jennifer measured also. All in all, there was no significant difference in mite counts using the three different methods."

Maybe there is no differance in counts on the bees, but there is on the boards, that is where sc bees excell, and let's face it, if there is a large mite population within the foraging area, then the field bees will be bringing in new mites everyday.

"I'm open to theories on why it didn't work in this study, but I haven't heard any half way plausible ones yet."

Your only open to what you wanted to hear, sc doesn't work. Reduced mite populations in the foraging area are what we want, that takes time due to factors that are out of our control, such as commercial bee hives within the foraging area bringing in new mites that continue to infest local hives. But once the mite levels are brought down in the foraging area, which can take time(two or three years), then levels within the hive will also decrease, which is what MB, Barry, and myself have managed to do.


----------



## peggjam

"Now suggesting that an ongoing "infestation' from passing mites between forages, on some scale allowing mites between hives to show no difference in mite abilities, is really pushing the limits."

Really, so tell us ol Bjorn.....how in the world did the few mites imported from where ever, infest the whole **** country, if not by this vector?


----------



## BjornBee

Peggjam,
Pay attention now.....I'll save "hitchhiking" till last. 

Package producers.
nuc producers.
Frame swapping
Box swapping
Splits
Divides
Queens with attendants.
drifting
Commercial operators
etc, etc...

I also did mention the occasional hitchhiker. If you read carefully, I did acknowledge that mites can in fact be passed this way. But taking that point, and expanding it to now conclude that ongoing mass infestations are likely, that allow no hives to show differences in controlled tests, is new to me. You take one fact and through association make concrete statements that have no basis, no fact, and has never been studied or found to be true up to this point.

Anything else?


----------



## MichaelW

Well the study showed no significant difference in mite drops on the boards so I don't really understand pegs point on "better at dropping mites" even if such an occurrence would work that way.

Peg says
"Your only open to what you wanted to hear, sc doesn't work. "

To the contray. I want it to work. Thats why I'm devoting over 2 years in this study ( www.acbeekeepers.org click on SARE research )to see if "natural cell sizes" works. 

So far every nit pick at this study dosen't address the study, it address the way every single diseases study on any treatments is done. Whether that be Apistan, thymoll, screen bottom boards, hygenic queens, drone comb removal, powdered sugar, etc. Again tell me how any of those things are shown to work if this study is "flawed".

I'm open to what can be shown to work. Setting a lava lamp on every hive in the yard and the mites disappearing dosen't prove anything.


----------



## BjornBee

If Hive "A" and Hive "B" are both bringing in 100 mites a day, and Hive A (large cell) is producing or allowing 50% more mites to reproduce than hive "B", would you still not notice a difference? Isn't hive "B" still going to show a decrease in mites, by reproducing a lower number of mites?


----------



## Keith Benson

peggjam said:


> Increased mite drop in sc hives would indicate that the sc hives were dealing with the mites in a much more effictant manner than the lc, who have less mite drop, meaning more of the mites in lc hives are making it to the cells to reproduce.


Or that the SC hives are cranking out more mites. . . . Just looking at mite drops might not tell you.


> Your only open to what you wanted to hear, sc doesn't work.


I have heard that exact same criticism of the SC proponants. I guess until there is some solid work that indicates one way or the other, each side will take shots at the other. Of course there will always be someone who will take their shots even if the results were delivered by a carpenter who walke accross a body of water to deliver it, but you cannot please everyone every time.

I think a body of work that largely settles this dispute is a long way off though, as there is a huge gap in the approach to the problem and the perception of the value of science between the two groups (on average and in general)

Keith


----------



## peggjam

Ok, Bjorn, pay close attention here:
My quote:
"foraging activities." 
Which can include all the following:
robbing
nector gathering
pollen gathering
open feeding by beekeep, guess this covers just about all of what you said, except movement of hives for pollination, and swapping frames around. I love the way you jump on someone for what you precieve them as stating. Here you assume that I stated just nector foraging, when in reality, I stated foraging activities. Oh, and they can also be transported by drones drifting from hive to hive. At any rate, these variables need to be considered when doing any type of study dealing with deases of any livestock.


----------



## BjornBee

Peggjam, that's why research is left to professionals.

You mention foraging. the only foraging that would maintain a constant load as was seen in the study, would be nectar forage.

You can now throw robbing into the mix, but it would be noted in the research of very large fluctuations in mite loads. one day a certain amount of mites, two days later, a twenty fold increase.

Sorry if I mistook your not so clear intentions of what foraging meant. Adding or rationalizing with 'robbing" does make it any better on your part.... 

Foraging is now also called or defined as robbing.... hmm.... as long as "activities" is thrown in.....


----------



## Keith Benson

MichaelW said:


> Setting a lava lamp on every hive in the yard and the mites disappearing dosen't prove anything.


 
What color lava lamp are we talking about?

Keith


----------



## BjornBee

Keith Benson said:


> What color lava lamp are we talking about?
> 
> Keith



Does it matter? Put a blue one out....someone will say its red!


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## MichaelW

Maybe we should qualify what "no significant difference means"
Completely random error could have easily caused the difference in mite levels between the SC and LC hives with a confidence level of 95%. Which means there could be a 5% chance that there really was more mites in the SC hives because of the SC treatment than the LC hives. Now if its the case that they are wrong, I still don't see how more mites inside a capped cell would mean the SC hives are handling the mites better. 

I wondered initially why she used the 3 different methods to measure mite infestation. Most studies just pick one of the 3 methods because multiple studies have been done comparing the different methods and show that they all predict the total varroa population in the hive equally well, as long as the hive is queenright. That is; a mite drop, or alcohol wash, or mites in capped cell count each accurately predict the total varroa infestation when they put in some Apistan and counted every single dead mite, every day that the apistan killed = total varroa infestation in the hive. Or at least with 95%, or some other high percent #, confidence.

After these threads, I now see why she used the 3 methods.


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## peggjam

In my own hives, sc that have been sc for two years, and in the same area for 3 years, meaning they have not been moved out of this area.

Mite counts of <10 (one count done each month, June through Sept, using either roll). That would be for this year 2007. Half the hives were treated in 2006 with MiteAway II, nothing was treated from Nov 2006 to present.

I also have 44 hives that I purchased last May. They are on LC frames, no treatments since I have had them. These are located 2.5 miles from home yard as the crow flies, and were requeen with my mutt Italian stock in June 07.
Mite counts of 4 & 5 per hive conducted in Sept of 07 by NYS(either roll). No nosema found in the hives tested. Samples were also tested for tracheal mites, none found, if anyone wants to see the Lab Report from Beltsville, i'll to figure out how to email it to you.

I have a commercial bee yard about 2.5 miles away, these bees are not moved at all, and he fumes with OA, I have one Amish beekeep about the same distance, but that's all the beekeeps I have near me.

My thoughts on sc and why it works and why it takes time to work: it works because it removes the mite load from the bees foraging area. If you have sc and have commercial beekeepers who regularly move hives in and out of your foraging area, it won't work as well, in fact, it may not work at all. BUT, I also think that you need to have a good bee that is genticly inclinded to deal with mites, either by grooming, or by hygenic behavior. SC on it's own will help, but is not the complete answer, and Bjorn before you jump on this, I have made statements to this effect in the past. I like sc, an natural cell an all that, but I still feel you need the right bee to make it come together.

As far as this study goes, if they were moved to a new area to conduct the study, then it will take more than one year for any positive effects of sc usage to occur, due to the foraging area mite loads. Even if the bees were sc for two years, they will still need to reduce the mite load in their foraging areas, before lower mite numbers will be seen in the hives.

Go ahead Bjorn, jump on it. As Forrest Gump said "That's all I got to say about that."


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## beemandan

peggjam said:


> they will still need to reduce the mite load in their foraging areas, before lower mite numbers will be seen in the hives.


So, you believe that a substantial number of mites are picked up during routine foraging?


----------



## peggjam

"Now if these bees of Bill's have been successfully raised without mite problems, using no treatments of any kind, why would there be an increase in mites in this study with the small cell group? What changed? "

Location.


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## peggjam

beemandan said:


> So, you believe that a substantial number of mites are picked up during routine foraging?


I think there are some, proably more than we realize picked up this way. But you could also get them from robbing crashing hives, open feeding by beekeeps where the bees are mixing in with bees from other hives in the foraging area.

If everyone treated with a miticide that was 95% effective, the mites have to come from somewhere, otherwise there would be very few mites within a few years time, which hasn't proven to be the case.


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## Gene Weitzel

I have been lurking on this thread since it first started. Correct me if I am wrong, but after viewing Jennifers presentation, it appeared to me that none of the colonies in the study carried a significant mite load (mite drops were typically <10 per 24 hr period). Could it be that you would need to purposely infest the colonies with significant numbers of mites to see the difference? Most studies I have read which test the response of the bees to a pathogen or pest have been conducted by deliberately infesting the colonies with significant numbers of the pest and then measured their response.


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## MichaelW

Finally, a good possible reason it wouldn't show anything Gene. That said, I didn't hear the actual drop numbers. Are you sure she stated them for this study? Bravo either way for the statement. 

Pegjam, no one measured the mites in Bill's hives then said they increased in the study hives. No one measured Bills mites period from the information that has been given out. Also if you look at varroa population models (based on measuring mite reproduction) you'll see that varroa populations can increase very rapidly and significantly after say a 95% control in one year by reproduction alone.

Bill are you still with us? Can you tell us what the average 24hr mite drops where?


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## peggjam

If wondered that myself, during the course of reading this thread why that approach hadn't been used. Dump in a 100 mites and see how the bees react to them.


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## Keith Benson

BjornBee said:


> Does it matter? Put a blue one out....someone will say its red!


Do I have to plug it in? I know that sounds stupid, but if there is any way I can change the protocol for no apparent reason, I'm game.

Keith


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## MichaelW

You have to plug it in Keith. And don't use red! Varroa like red, thats why they are red. Red ones will only attract more mites. Blue should work fine.


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## Gene Weitzel

MichaelW said:


> Finally, a good possible reason it wouldn't show anything Gene. That said, I didn't hear the actual drop numbers. Are you sure she stated them for this study? Bravo either way for the statement.


Michael, it seems to me that she made some comments during the presentation to that effect. Also when she was describing how they made sure the initial loads were normalized across the colonies, the numbers she was throwing out were things like 4, 7, 8, 5 etc. when she described the initial drops for the colonies. Even though it was difficult to see, some of the graphics she showed on the screen seemed to indicate quite low overall mite loads throughout the study.

This would be my biggest "bone to pick" about the study. Given the low numbers of mites, any comparison of numbers would show differences that were within the margin of error for their measurement techniques. This would render it very difficult to come to any meaningful conclusions with this study.


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## Dale Hodges

Has anyone, anywhere, proven where mites come from? Who or what was thier host before honeybees?


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## peggjam

"Also if you look at varroa population models (based on measuring mite reproduction) you'll see that varroa populations can increase very rapidly and significantly after say a 95% control in one year by reproduction alone."

Assuming that everything is favorable for mite reproduction.


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## MichaelW

Gene, I don't know, I'll have to watch it again to say if I could tell that info or not. I do remember a percent increase graph that looked like a pretty good increase in mites in both groups. I had assumed we wouldn't be able to see the real numbers till she publishes it. Thats another good question for Bill. When is it going to be published? Bill?... Bill?


----------



## peggjam

Dale Hodges said:


> Has anyone, anywhere, proven where mites come from? Who or what was thier host before honeybees?


Here's a link:


http://www.columbia.edu/itc/cerc/danoff-burg/invasion_bio/inv_spp_summ/varroa_destructor.html

Quote from above link:

"<>*Original Distribution: *Varroa mites were originally found only in Asia as parasites on the Asian honeybee (_Apis cerana_). Until recently, all varroa mites were classified as _Varroa jacobsoni_, a species first characterized in Java in 1904 and later discovered to inhabit much of mainland Asia. Genetic analysis, however, has identified two distinct species in this range. The "new" species, christened_Varroa destructor_, is endemic to Korea, Japan, and Thailand. Of the two,_ V. destructor_ has been definitively identified as the variety involved in current infestations of European honeybees."


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## MichaelW

peggjam said:


> Assuming that everything is favorable for mite reproduction.


yep

aghhh, who made this silly 10 character limit


----------



## Kieck

I think that mite-load issue is of importance here. The "small-cell" colonies did not have high levels of mites, but neither did the "large-cell" colonies in this study. I believe Berry mentioned in her presentation that mite drops were not significantly different between the two groups. In other words, approximately equal numbers of mites were falling off the large-cell and the small-cell bees. The small-cell weren't "better at removing mites," and the large-cell didn't "have more mites." The protocol showed no real difference in mite drop between the two groups.

"Mite migration from drifting," "infestation from surrounding colonies," etcetera, all combined factors in this study led to only low infestations of mites.

At this point, Berry's study seems like a good starting point, but is not supportive of either side of this argument, in my opinion. It doesn't support the argument that small cell reduces mite populations significantly, and it doesn't support the argument that small cell doesn't reduce mite populations significantly, to my way of thinking, because the mite populations were insignificant in both groups.

Keep up the proclamations that this study refutes the effectiveness of SC and the justifications for why this study doesn't accurately test SC, and you'll end up driving any researchers away from this topic because they won't wish to be embroiled in the arguments.


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## peggjam

"Pegjam, no one measured the mites in Bill's hives then said they increased in the study hives. No one measured Bills mites period from the information that has been given out."

So how would they determine if there was any increase during the study, if no pre-study counts were done?


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## beemandan

peggjam said:


> So how would they determine if there was any increase during the study, if no pre-study counts were done?


First the bees were shaken into a single, large cage. Then they were scooped out into packages. Then those packages were installed into hives. So, only the phoretic mites that managed to survive the process remained. In both studies (2006 and 2007) initial mite counts were taken. Later, more counts were taken and even later more counts. It'd be pretty easy to see if and where any increases occurred.


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## beemandan

MichaelW said:


> Also if you look at varroa population models (based on measuring mite reproduction) you'll see that varroa populations can increase very rapidly and significantly after say a 95% control in one year by reproduction alone.


Anyone remember the days when Apistan was 99% effective? Then a year later the hives were heavily infested again.


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## BjornBee

beemandan said:


> Anyone remember the days when Apistan was 99% effective? Then a year later the hives were heavily infested again.



You keep throwing them dots out there Dan, but unless you actually connect them for others, I'm not sure the point is getting through....


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## peggjam

beemandan said:


> First the bees were shaken into a single, large cage. Then they were scooped out into packages. Then those packages were installed into hives. So, only the phoretic mites that managed to survive the process remained. In both studies (2006 and 2007) initial mite counts were taken. Later, more counts were taken and even later more counts. It'd be pretty easy to see if and where any increases occured.


So, this is how Berry set up her study? Or is this another one, as I am under the impression that her study only lasted one year.

If this is the way it was done, then I can see why the results arn't favorable to sc, and show no differance between lc and sc.

#1: We all know that any hive can make it through the first year, the real test comes during the second year when mite levels are estblished.

#2: The brood cycle was broken, which is good mite control by it's self.

#3: Most of the mite drop was proably from mites that came in with foragers.

With both lc and sc hives foraging the same areas, I would expect mite levels to be the same under these conditons. A real study would be of hives that were established and then mite counts taken during the second year. This study really doesn't prove anything in my HO.


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## beemandan

Kieck said:


> The protocol showed no real difference in mite drop between the two groups.
> At this point, Berry's study seems like a good starting point, but is not supportive of either side of this argument, in my opinion. It doesn't support the argument that small cell reduces mite populations significantly, and it doesn't support the argument that small cell doesn't reduce mite populations significantly, to my way of thinking, because the mite populations were insignificant in both groups.


Over the past two years I've 'regressed' 70% of my personal hives. By next spring I should be at 100%. So you might imagine how disappointed I am in these results. I, respectfully disagree with Kieck. The study does, clearly SUGGEST that small cell does not reduce varroa mite loads. There was not a significant difference in loads. You can take into account all the other variables, including drifting mites, but if small cell worked at controlling varroa then there should have been fewer mites in those hives after a number of brood cycles. Period.


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## Gene Weitzel

peggjam said:


> Here's a link:
> 
> 
> http://www.columbia.edu/itc/cerc/danoff-burg/invasion_bio/inv_spp_summ/varroa_destructor.html
> 
> Quote from above link:
> 
> "<>*Original Distribution: *Varroa mites were originally found only in Asia as parasites on the Asian honeybee (_Apis cerana_). Until recently, all varroa mites were classified as _Varroa jacobsoni_, a species first characterized in Java in 1904 and later discovered to inhabit much of mainland Asia. Genetic analysis, however, has identified two distinct species in this range. The "new" species, christened_Varroa destructor_, is endemic to Korea, Japan, and Thailand. Of the two,_ V. destructor_ has been definitively identified as the variety involved in current infestations of European honeybees."


This brings up another point regarding any mite studies. There are 3 genotypes of V. destructor. One from Korea, another from Japan/Thailand and a third from Indonesia. Only the Korean and Japan/Thailand genotypes can infest and reproduce in colonies of A. melifera and the Korean genotype is the most virulent. IMO, some analysis of mite genotype needs to be included in the studies since there is a difference in the virulence of the Korean vs the Japan genotypes.

I am not sure that everyone recognizes the significance of the discovery in 2000 by Anderson and Trueman that we were dealing with V. destructor and not V. jacobsoni. A. melifera is 100% resistant to over 90% of the known genotypes of varroa mites. These resistance factors are at least partially under genetic control and respond to selection. Most researchers conclude that V. destructor made the jump to A. melifera around 1960. They were found in the US in 1987 (I am certain that they were here earlier but just undetected). I do believe that A. melifera has been exposed to them for enough generations that we are beginning to see a selection response. In the 30 or so feral cutouts I did this year, I made it a point to look for them. I did not see one mite on any bees or in any brood that I removed, but I could have easily missed some. The point is that none of the colonies had a significant infestation. I think that it is unlikely that we will come up with a 100% genetically resistant bee, so I do believe we need to look at a combination of other factors as well. We will probably also not see V. destructor completely disappear, but a Varroa mite that cannot consistently reproduce is essentially a transient colony invader. IMO, this study could indicate that some beekeepers are approaching that reality.


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## peggjam

BjornBee said:


> You keep throwing them dots out there Dan, but unless you actually connect them for others, I'm not sure the point is getting through....


 
Bjorn, if ya got something ta say, say it.......I respect the opinnions of others....even yours.


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## BjornBee

Why does it matter where the mites counts started? If she plotted a continual graph for both SC and LC and they both showed a similar pattern or growth, then of course this means something.

Disclaimer - This does take into account that SC does NOT take years to show any positive effects of shorter capping times.

Whether the mites started at point A or point B on a graph, you would expect the mites that are reproducing on a level claimed for years to be 50% lower from SC capping times, to be better than LC that was claimed to allow many more mites to reproduce.


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## BjornBee

peggjam said:


> Bjorn, if ya got something ta say, say it.......I respect the opinnions of others....even yours.


 OK, I'll say it....start connecting the dots...


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## peggjam

"You can take into account all the other variables, including drifting mites, but if small cell worked at controlling varroa then there should have been fewer mites in those hives after a number of brood cycles. Period."

I disagree with your assement. You will not see significantly lower numbers of mites in your hives, until you have removed the mite population from your bee's foraging area, yes that includes your neibors hives as well as your own, and that can not be done in a number of brood cycles. It all takes time, and the bad thing is if you have migatory hives moving in and out of your area, it may never be done.


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## peggjam

BjornBee said:


> OK, I'll say it....start connecting the dots...


 
I haven't found any dots to connect yet, just a bunch of conjucture, some of it my own.


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## Keith Benson

Dots-schmots. I think you are wasting you time with this. I am going with the lavalamps, you people are so old school at this point.

Keith

PS: Once again we return to that place where SC will never be proven nor disproven. 

Separate the colonies or the mites from the LC will move over and cloud the issue.

Don't separate the colonies as the differences in site will alter the outcomes.

Catch 22 - and I am not so certain that either is inherently true.

If having no other bees around but your own is a pre-requisite for using small cell, then I think there is an awful lot of people out there who shouldn't even bother with the stuff as they cannot get away from so called LC bees. Sorta takes the wind out of much of the thing - if that is true.

Personally I wouldn't have guessed that the influx of mites from most cases of drift and such would be such a big deal. Robbing I could see, but other than that, I don't. Of course, I have nothing to back that up and would be happy to have it refuted by someone with some data.


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## Gene Weitzel

One other observation that came from this study was the the overall population of bees was significantly higher in the SC colonies as apposed to the LC colonies. IMO, this alone is a pretty good reason to us SC, it seems to me that a significantly higher population of bees in an otherwise healthy colony puts them in a better position to fight infestation of any pest.


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## BjornBee

Gene Weitzel said:


> One other observation that came from this study was the the overall population of bees was significantly higher in the SC colonies as apposed to the LC colonies. IMO, this alone is a pretty good reason to us SC, it seems to me that a significantly higher population of bees in an otherwise healthy colony puts them in a better position to fight infestation of any pest.



I don't think that rationalization holds water. How many times have you heard that "it was my best producing hive, my strongest hive" that crashed first.

And I know for a fact that hives that deal with SHB have more to do with genetics and other factors, and population means little. (Don't confuse this with a "weak" hive that can not complete tasks and duties due to lack of beepower or resources.) A hive's ability to deal with pests do not directly correspond to population.

The same can be said of mites. Population by itself is not a factor in regards to whether a hive can handle ANY infestation of a pest.


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## Kieck

> The study does, clearly SUGGEST that small cell does not reduce varroa mite loads. There was not a significant difference in loads. -beemandan


No, the results suggest that at very low mite pressure, no significant difference exists between SC and LC colonies' abilities to manage mite populations.

What we don't know from this study is whether or not a significant difference might appear when SC and LC colonies face greater pressure from _Varroa_ mites. This study seems to suggest that both LC and SC colonies are very effective at controlling mite populations, *or* (more likely in my opinion) neither set was exposed to many mites during the study.

Now, if Berry had gotten very high numbers of mites in both sets, I would conclude that LC is no better than SC and SC is no better than LC for controlling mites, *and* SC is not an effective method against _Varroa_.


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## Gene Weitzel

BjornBee said:


> I don't think that rationalization holds water. How many times have you heard that "it was my best producing hive, my strongest hive" that crashed first.
> 
> And I know for a fact that hives that deal with SHB have more to do with genetics and other factors, and population means little. (Don't confuse this with a "weak" hive that can not complete tasks and duties due to lack of beepower or resources.) A hive's ability to deal with pests do not directly correspond to population.
> 
> The same can be said of mites. Population by itself is not a factor in regards to whether a hive can handle ANY infestation of a pest.


After thinking about it, you could be right about that in regards to some pests, I have witnessed the SHB issue first hand so I know what you mean. I have seen a strong Italian colony completely decimated by SHB because the bees completely ignored them and let them have free reign over the combs. I have seen a small feral hive that only occupied a few frames in a 10 frame deep keep the SHB entirely at bay in the same yard. But I still can't help but believe that more bees is a good thing.


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## peggjam

"If having no other bees around but your own is a pre-requisite for using small cell, then I think there is an awful lot of people out there who shouldn't even bother with the stuff as they cannot get away from so called LC bees. Sorta takes the wind out of much of the thing - if that is true."

If you read my post that deals only with my bees, and my expericance, you will note that there are 44 LC hives with very low mite counts, and no treatments since I have had them. We'll see what they look like in the spring.


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## Barry

peggjam said:


> You will not see significantly lower numbers of mites in your hives, until you have removed the mite population from your bee's foraging area, yes that includes your neibors hives as well as your own, and that can not be done in a number of brood cycles. It all takes time, and the bad thing is if you have migatory hives moving in and out of your area, it may never be done.


I'm not so sure about this one. I'm pretty sure Dennis had lots of commercial beekeepers around him. How close to his hives they were, I'm not sure. Dennis, can you set me straight on this?

- Barry


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## MichaelW

Keith Benson said:


> Personally I wouldn't have guessed that the influx of mites from most cases of drift and such would be such a big deal. Robbing I could see, but other than that, I don't. Of course, I have nothing to back that up and would be happy to have it refuted by someone with some data.


Sorry, the data does back you up.

kieck, your jumping to conclusions without seeing the actual numbers. a relatively low infestation could mean just below economic threshold (like 50) or it could mean 10-12. Until I see some numbers I'm not going to say this study dosen't show anything. Now if you mean anything under economic threshold is insignificant, I would call that conservative but still a reasonable opinion, just not my opinion.

Pegjam, until you watch the presentation, I have nothing else to say about your clearly uninformed, "shot in the dark" comments.  I'm not going to post the link because I've already posted it about 4 times myself.


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## peggjam

Barry said:


> I'm not so sure about this one. I'm pretty sure Dennis had lots of commercial beekeepers around him. How close to his hives they were, I'm not sure. Dennis, can you set me straight on this?
> 
> - Barry


 
Well that would depend on how well the commercial beekeep takes care of his bees. And whether they were moved cross country regularly. Not all commercial guys move all their bees, they may only move part of them.


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## beemandan

All right. I think I understand now. Small cell only works if a) you have a high varroa infestation and b) if you don't have any non small cell bees within a 6 mile radius.

Ok....first thing this spring I'm going back to LC as I don't fit the successful SC profile. I surely wish someone had explained all of this before I started my regressions.


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## Gene Weitzel

Keith Benson said:


> PS: Once again we return to that place where SC will never be proven nor disproven.


This may be the most logical statement posted in this thread. Given the differences in bees, climate, management styles, etc. that exist across this country, I don't see how a study could be designed that would not introduce some element of doubt one way or the other. Don't get me wrong, I am a small/natural cell proponent, but not because I necessarily believe that its the "cure all" for varroa. It just seems to me that after millions of years of selection, the bees probably know a little more about what they need to survive than we do. I started my beekeeping operation with that thought in mind and have no intention of going down any other path. I can see how for those large operations that are on LC, a different solution would be much more attractive. As to V. destructor, given that A. melifera is 100% genetically resistant to over 90% of the known genotypes of varroa, I believe that the genetic resistance component is probably more important than anything else and that in the end it may prove to be all that is needed for effective mite control. But I will still keep my bees on small/natural cell.


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## peggjam

"Pegjam, until you watch the presentation, I have nothing else to say about your clearly uninformed, "shot in the dark" comments."

My shot in the dark comments come closer to reality than Berry's study does. They are also based on 3 years worth of observation in my own hives. It's funny, that the ones who have used sc and had any success at it would even bother to point out the flaws in some of these "scienctic studies". I can't wait for your unbaised SARE report, should make for a good read. Meanwhile, i'll keep doing what I am doing, i'm happy with it.


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## peggjam

beemandan said:


> All right. I think I understand now. Small cell only works if a) you have a high varroa infestation and b) if you don't have any non small cell bees within a 6 mile radius.
> 
> Ok....first thing this spring I'm going back to LC as I don't fit the successful SC profile. I surely wish someone had explained all of this before I started my regressions.


With that attuide you should, if your convinced it won't work it won't. I can't think of anyone saying that you need to have a high varroa infestation, however, you do need to have an established varroa population on which to base your conclusionans, something you didn't have because you broke the hives up into packages pior to the start of the study.

I don't care where your bees forage, their're going to bring mites back to the hive, it's what the hive does with the mites that matter.

I have LC hives with very low mite counts, that are within the foraging area of my sc hives, is that just coincidence, I don't think so. But ya'll just go back to your study, go on believing that forage area has no impact on mite numbers in your hives, an don't forget to buy your Check Mite for next spring.


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## Keith Benson

peggjam said:


> If you read my post that deals only with my bees, and my expericance, you will note that there are 44 LC hives with very low mite counts, and no treatments since I have had them. We'll see what they look like in the spring.


I did, and I beelive you, I am just saying that perhaps this method is more useful in certain circumstances, if at all. And yes I use small cell too.

Keith


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## peggjam

Keith Benson said:


> I did, and I beelive you, I am just saying that perhaps this method is more in certain circumstances, if at all. And yes I use small cell too.
> 
> Keith


 
I think it will work anywhere, just not as well as most expect it to. It also helps if you have bees that are geniticly inclinded to deal with mites. SC on it's own may not be enough. When I first started trying sc, I too thought that it was all that was needed, but I have made comments that it works better with the right bee. An i'll give this example, you can keep all the mite levels low, but if a bee is not capable of surviving a northern winter, then it's all for nothing (AHB's) would be a good example of this.


----------



## Keith Benson

beemandan said:


> Ok....first thing this spring I'm going back to LC as I don't fit the successful SC profile. I surely wish someone had explained all of this before I started my regressions.


I wouldn't spend time and energy going back, there is nothing inherently wrong with small cell if it doesn't work as advertized. The bees will still use it fine. IOW, once you have some small cell combs, even if there is no benefit, they are equivalent to LC combs and I would not bother converting them back. If you made that decision to scrap the SC thing though, I would simply choose whatever foundation suited your fancy and not worry about cell size, when you are replacing old combs or increasing numbers. I wouldn't get rid of it though.

Keith


----------



## beemandan

peggjam said:


> if your convinced it won't work it won't


I really believe that this is true. And I believe that the converse is equally true.

I really don't have an 'attitude' about all of this. I believe that an adult difference of opinion is normal and to be encouraged. My dad and I argued about many things. Whatever side one of us took, the other immediately took the opposite. Our only unwritten rule was that neither of us was allowed to get angry. I apply that same rule when debating any topic, here or anywhere else.


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## Keith Benson

Gene Weitzel said:


> One other observation that came from this study was the the overall population of bees was significantly higher in the SC colonies as apposed to the LC colonies. IMO, this alone is a pretty good reason to us SC,


The message I get from it is that more bees should = more honey.

Keith


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## peggjam

beemandan said:


> I really believe that this is true. And I believe that the converse is equally true.
> 
> I really don't have an 'attitude' about all of this. I believe that an adult difference of opinion is normal and to be encouraged. My dad and I argued about many things. Whatever side one of us took, the other immediately took the opposite. Our only unwritten rule was that neither of us was allowed to get angry. I apply that same rule when debating any topic, here or anywhere else.


 
That's a cool attitude to have. I am not "angry" just discouraged that one would read "established population" and come up with "high infestation". I'm sure when the study was set up, that this was thought to be a good idea. However, in MHO, it was a fatal flaw.

Also, most hives push to reach a three mile radius of the hive, where did 6 miles come from?


----------



## MichaelW

peggjam said:


> I can't wait for your unbaised SARE report, should make for a good read.


Now that cuts to the quick peggjam. We've been having fun and all ribbing each other, but I started natural cell over 2 years ago long before the thought of a funded study ever crossed my mind. You even gave me some very helpful advise to get that going. Now if your going to discredit a study thats not even half way done because I have an open mind to the fact that it might not work and that a university research project might have done a good job with their study, I say thats lame dude. I'm making my study as non-biased and scientific as possible for this producer. I've been taking advise from our state apiarist, went to see how Jennifer Berry did it, taking a statistics course, and been reviewing every piece of literature I can find on varroa reproduction in their cells. There's alot of info out there. Just not much on this very specific subject. Whatever results I find is not going to be believed by some people, but at least I know I'm doing it right, the best way that I can.


----------



## peggjam

MichaelW said:


> Now that cuts to the quick peggjam. We've been having fun and all ribbing each other, but I started natural cell over 2 years ago long before the thought of a funded study ever crossed my mind. You even gave me some very helpful advise to get that going. Now if your going to discredit a study thats not even half way done because I have an open mind to the fact that it might not work and that a university research project might have done a good job with their study, I say thats lame dude. I'm making my study as non-biased and scientific as possible for this producer. I've been taking advise from our state apiarist, went to see how Jennifer Berry did it, taking a statistics course, and been reviewing every piece of literature I can find on varroa reproduction in their cells. There's alot of info out there. Just not much on this very specific subject. Whatever results I find is not going to be believed by some people, but at least I know I'm doing it right, the best way that I can.


Not slamming your SARE project or you, I sincerely am looking forward to reading it. Sorry you took it that way.


----------



## beemandan

peggjam said:


> That's a cool attitude to have. I am not "angry" just discouraged that one would read "established population" and come up with "high infestation". I'm sure when the study was set up, that this was thought to be a good idea. However, in MHO, it was a fatal flaw.
> 
> Also, most hives push to reach a three mile radius of the hive, where did 6 miles come from?


Well, I figured the 3 mile thing too. So, a colony of bees 6 miles away could conceivably forage up to the outer 3 mile limit of my bees. 

Actually the 2006 bees weren't Bills. They came from LC hives at the beelab. Does that contribute to the fatal flaw idea or work against it?

I believe that I read someone post the term 'low population' of varroa. So, I just took the opposite and used high infestation. But I aint gonna review the literature ( it looks like its 17+ pages now) to confirm it.


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## peggjam

"Actually the 2006 bees weren't Bills. They came from LC hives at the beelab. Does that contribute to the fatal flaw idea or work against it?"

If they were broken up pior to the study, yes. If used as established hives, no.


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## MichaelW

peggjam said:


> Not slamming your SARE project or you, I sincerely am looking forward to reading it. Sorry you took it that way.


Thanks peggjam. When its done feel free to slam the methods as much as you want but be sure that its unbiased.


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## peggjam

MichaelW said:


> Thanks peggjam. When its done feel free to slam the methods as much as you want but be sure that its unbiased.


 
I will. Some good studies come from the SARE projects, so I am expecting it to be a good report, even if I don't agree with it.


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## beemandan

Keith Benson said:


> I wouldn't spend time and energy going back, there is nothing inherently wrong with small cell if it doesn't work as advertized. The bees will still use it fine.


I'm not gonna just dump it. What I've begun to believe is that the best idea may be to go foundationless. I'll probably try it in a few hives next year and see how it does.


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## MichaelW

For foundationless, regardless of what works for varroa and what doesn't, you still have to wonder, is it possible for the bees to genetically forget how to draw comb without foundation? Seems like I read Africanized bees consistently draw a specific (small) sized cell, but our European bees will draw a wide variety of cell sizes when raised without foundation. Is that because they have always been genetically predisposed to draw comb that way, or is it because they have been raised with foundation longer than then the African races of bees?

Its getting late (for me anyway), I'm really conjecturing now. Good night!


----------



## beemandan

peggjam said:


> if your convinced it won't work it won't.


peggjam, I think you really hit the nail on the head with this comment.

I genuinely believe that what you said is true. And as I said earlier, I believe that the converse is equally true. If you cogitate on it for a moment or so I think you'll get my point.

There's an entirely new thread, or poll, started by TWT on untreated LC. You can argue all the fine details but I believe that it says a lot that many folks are not using chemicals in their LC hives and seem to be having success.

And, on that note, I PROMISE that I won't add anything else to this thread.


----------



## peggjam

MichaelW said:


> For foundationless, regardless of what works for varroa and what doesn't, you still have to wonder, is it possible for the bees to genetically forget how to draw comb without foundation? Seems like I read Africanized bees consistently draw a specific (small) sized cell, but our European bees will draw a wide variety of cell sizes when raised without foundation. Is that because they have always been genetically predisposed to draw comb that way, or is it because they have been raised with foundation longer than then the African races of bees?
> 
> Its getting late (for me anyway), I'm really conjecturing now. Good night!


I concur with your observations on foundationless. Mine seem to start out drawing alot of drone cells, even if they have, (in my oppinion) enough. They seem to get better at it over time. I haven't measured any to find out exectly what the cell size is, though.


----------



## peggjam

beemandan said:


> peggjam, I think you really hit the nail on the head with this comment.
> 
> I genuinely believe that what you said is true. And as I said earlier, I believe that the converse is equally true. If you cogitate on it for a moment or so I think you'll get my point.
> 
> There's an entirely new thread, or poll, started by TWT on untreated LC. You can argue all the fine details but I believe that it says a lot that many folks are not using chemicals in their LC hives and seem to be having success.
> 
> And, on that note, I PROMISE that I won't add anything else to this thread.


Why quit now......just getting warmed up. Everyone has valid oppinions, and views. My oppinions are based on what I have observed. I am fortinate enough to live in an area where there are few commercial hives, and those that are here are well managed. Doesn't make me right, or for that matter wrong, neither does it make anyone else right or wrong. What works for me, may not work for you. So on that note I will say goodnight.


----------



## Michael Bush

AHB raise 5 to 10% more drones than EHB. It's a mating advantage we should not have given them, but we bred out the trait to raise a lot of drones over a lot of years.

I do wonder about the size thing. The EHB do build a variety of sizes of cells. I wonder if you kept them on just small cell comb if they would stabalize on one size. But it's a circle. The variety of sizes of cells makes a variety of sizes of bees who build a variety of sizes of cells. Perhaps if you got to all the same sized bees they would build all the same sized cells.

So far I haven't seen that here.


----------



## BWrangler

Hi Guys,



Barry said:


> I'm not so sure about this one. I'm pretty sure Dennis had lots of commercial beekeepers around him. How close to his hives they were, I'm not sure. Dennis, can you set me straight on this?
> 
> - Barry



They sure did. On the average I was surrounded by about 240 large cell commercial hives with in a mile. And another 200 within two miles. A seasonal drop yard, for several semi loads of Ca almonds bees, was located 1 1/2 miles from my yard. I was surrounded.

The closest yards were less than 1/2 mile away. These treated yards collapsed from mites on two different occasions, while my small cell hives just kept on trucking. I was invited to inspect some of these collapsing hives. Upon opening a hive, V. mites would scurry over the top bars like ants on an anthill. There were thousands of them visible.

My take on this issue. A single yard will act like a super organism, much the same way a colony does to an individual bee. Once I abandoned my quest for absolute mite levels, I put all my small cell and large cell hives in the same yard. Relative was good enough.

I tested the effects of mite immigration by placing a very susceptible hive across my backyard from a very mite tolerant small cell hive. Within a week both hives had about the same natural mite fall.

Regards
Dennis


----------



## BjornBee

Dennis,
I'm not sure about your one hive test.

I did sugar rolls on THOUSANDS of hives for the state. Never did I see a leveling out of mites between hives due to some mite migration. If you shook and counted mites from ten hives all lined up, you could get a count of something like 3-12-5-45-78-4-12-6-87-1.

Why would mite counts on yard after yard produce such drastic differences in mite counts with side by side hives in the same apiary?

There is NO WAY, that mite migration happens on some level, just now discussed in these terms, that allow a leveling off of mites between hives. 

I'll offer anyone wanting to stop in at my place, the opportunity to view three years of state collected data that shows drastic mite differences from hives that have been placed side by side for year after year. This type data can also be found and authenticated by calling any state apiary inspection programs that goes out and does mite counts on hives as a service.

The whole basis of a threshold for treatment, the discovery of hives in regards to sun and shade, and other factors, have all come about due to hives having differences in mite loads. If all hives had the same mite load, or mite drop, or even the possibility of some "leveling out", all hives would be within a statistical margin. That's not been found to be the case.


----------



## Barry

BjornBee said:


> If all hives had the same mite load, or mite drop, or even the possibility of some "leveling out", all hives would be within a statistical margin. That's not been found to be the case.


Ah, remember the Berry study of 2007?  . . .


----------



## TwT

dennis said his was even counts after some time, berry said SC had higher counts, thats not level or am I missing something


----------



## Dale Hodges

Thanks peggjam!


----------



## BjornBee

Barry,
So we went from a study that everyone expected to see lower mites in the SC hives, to concluding because there was not much difference between the two types of hives, that being SC and LC, that proof exists that mites were transferring at a rate that "leveling out" of the numbers must of existed. Wrong!

That's not how experiments, research, and conclusions are reached. That's not what the study was set out to find, and that's not what the study eluded too. You guys are coming up with your own findings to reach your own conclusions, to fit your own agenda. Very clear to see.

ANYONE having their hives sugar rolled or counted, can see that HUGE differences between hives sitting next to each other. I won't retype everything again. Please read my previous post. I stand by those comments as fact.


----------



## Michael Bush

>dennis said his was even counts after some time, berry said SC had higher counts

Actually Berry said there was no statistically significant difference. The "higher counts" were statistically irrelevant. For scientific purposes this means they are identical.


----------



## Barry

BjornBee said:


> Please read my previous post. I stand by those comments as fact.


. . . . . . ditto.

From the video regarding mite levels:

"it's not statistically significant" - Berry

"you're saying they're not significantly different, they're basically the same, ["correct" - Berry] even though they're numerically different ["correct" - Berry] - Bill

"the mite drop was not significant" - Berry


----------



## Barry

BjornBee said:


> Barry wrote:
> "We had significantly more bees in small cell than we did in regular cell at the end of the experiment." - Jennifer Berry
> 
> Barry,
> And as soon as she tells me what the starting numbers were, the pattern or growth rate perhaps plotted on a chart, and the final numbers, it may actually mean something to me. Right now its a casual observation with no data, no reasoning, and no other suggestions. I would not read into too deeply.
> 
> [snip]
> 
> What does more bees mean anyways?


Perhaps more mites? OK, by now I'll assume you've listened to the video of her presentation. Near the end, she gave the data:

"Percent mite population change was also higher in SC than regular cell. Mite per bee was also higher in SC to regular cell."

"Ending bee populations. We had significantly more bees in SC than we did in regular cell at the end of the experiment."

You feel one cannot draw a correlation between higher mite levels and more bees?

- Barry


----------



## BWrangler

Hi Guys,

>There is NO WAY, that mite migration happens on some level, just now discussed in these terms, that allow a leveling off of mites between hives....

I've counted mites, for a decade, from my own hives. A tremendous difference in natural mite drop does exist between hives in the same yard. And often, even within the same hive a few days apart.

Maybe equals or leveling isn't the best terminology. Probably a better statement would be mites increase in hives with a naturally low level. And mite levels are moderated in hives with higher mite loads. The absolute count can be magnitudes apart.

In my little backyard test, the small cell hive was dropping about 2 mites/week. The large cell cordovan hive was dropping 30 to 50 mites/day. A week after relocating the cordovan, it dropped 20 to 30 mites/day. The small cell hive dropped 10 to 15 mites/day.

If mite drop was the only factor considered, these two hives would be about the same. But there was a significant difference. The small cell hive was mite tolerant. Mite drop, from it, was the result of active mite detection and removal. Not much time for those immigrant mites to reproduce.

The cordovan was the best mite rearer I've seen. It's mite levels continued to increase. Mite drop reflected the demise of old mites who had gone through several reproductive cycles.

Those cordovans were the most beautiful bees I've seen. And they were most gentle bees I've ever worked. They were an ideal backyard bee. That's why I moved them there. The mite drop comparison was incidental. And I treated them with oxalic.

After a season, I got tired of treating the cordovans. And they didn't overwinter very well. So, I requeened them and put them on small cell. At the time, I was following the 'survival small cell bee' philosophy. Knowing what I do now, I wish I'd kept the queen and put them on small cell comb.

Regards
Dennis


----------



## Kieck

From the Berry study, the number of mites per bee was higher among the SC bees than among the LC bees, but the difference was not statistically signficant. SC hives had significantly more bees than LC hives.

I wonder, then, if the difference in average mites per hive (population of mites in a colony) was significant?


----------



## Barry

Hey Bill -

Are all the SC and LC hives from the study still intact and sitting where they were for the study? Will you be keeping them as they are and monitoring them over the next couple years?

- Barry


----------



## tony350i

>Are all the SC and LC hives from the study still intact and sitting where they were for the study? Will you be keeping them as they are and monitoring them over the next couple years?



Providing that the SC hive is small cell and knot something in-between cell sizes,
Then the proof would be there for every one to see.
It only needs some one that has good success with SC to check the hives are what they say they are.

Regards Tony


----------



## beemandan

tony350i said:


> It only needs some one that has good success with SC to check the hives are what they say they are.


What, exactly, are you implying?
I know I PROMISED but I just can't let this pass.


----------



## TwT

beemandan said:


> What, exactly, are you implying?
> I know I PROMISED but I just can't let this pass.


Same thing I always wondered, I have seen one post the other day about they have as many loses with SC as they do with LC, if bee's live on LC here and other places then why not SC live other places? from the poll I started SC beeks are for and few between compared to large (regular) cell use and not treating, SC was when I started reading the post the SILVER BULLET but with a few people and the study it shows different, I am not against SC but glad I didn't pay the extra money to get on it  , and have wondered why we havent heard more about hive loses with SC but could it have been because of the investment and all the hipe on the forums??? not saying everyone that has luck with SC has had loses because of mites but I think because the success of others we havent heard all the truth about loses... JMHO!!


----------



## odfrank

MichaelW said:


> you still have to wonder, is it possible for the bees to genetically forget how to draw comb without foundation?
> 
> I proposed to a science message board if they thought bees would forget the cell size they used for 250 million years in 150+ years of LC foundation use. All answers said no way.


----------



## NeilV

Kieck asked: "I wonder, then, if the difference in average mites per hive (population of mites in a colony) was significant?"

If I understood her correctly, the total number of mites in the SC hives were higher than and the LC hives to an extent that was statisticially significant, but not by a lot. The mites per bee also was higher in SC but not to a statistically significant degree. 

I can't remember the exact numbers, but the figures for total mites, to be significantly significant, really was noticably higher in the SC hives. 

I darn sure don't want to get into the the silly name calling that is going on about drifting in another thread. Life's to short to enage in (or waste time reading) that sort of stuff. (i.e., please knock off the personal stuff -- nobody cares who gets the last word in.) But I do wonder why a significantly significant number of mites would drift to the SC hives and away from the SC hives. 

Somebody posted a link to J. Berry's demonstration, and I again encourage people who are interested in this topic or in IPM generally to watch it. The first half or so is about IPM and not specific to small cell.


----------



## Barry

Can anyone say with authority whether or not the hives used in the Berry study remain set up and if more observations will be conducted?

- Barry


----------



## Michael Bush

>Can anyone say with authority whether or not the hives used in the Berry study remain set up and if more observations will be conducted?

I can say she told me she intended for them to remain for another year or so at least. I can't say if that happened.


----------



## Jim Fischer

I'll ask her point blank what the game plan is when I see her
next weekend at the SNEBA meeting.

No, SNEBA is not a disease that Jennifer and I both have,
it is the _Southern New England Beekeeper Association_.

Odds are, she will do other tests, as one is never enough.
And I assume that anyone who wants can go take a look
and see for themselves if they agree that the hives said
to be "small cell" are small enough for their taste.

If history is any guide, poor Jennifer will be villified for not
producing results as compelling as the smell-cell advocates
would want, someone will go look at the hives, and denounce
the hives are "not fully regressed", "not placed properly 
according to feng shui", "tested when Mercury was retrograde",
or something similarly surreal.

I'm hoping that this time around will be different.


----------



## Barry

No Jim, no hidden agenda. Just a simple question requiring a simple answer. No need for the rant.

- barry


----------



## Barry

MichaelW said:


> At HAS Jennifer Berry reported that the UGA study is complete. The report is the conclusion of the study. However she did say that they wouldn't make any conclusions like, "it dosen't work". She just reported what they did and what they found, which was a one year study that showed no significant difference in mite counts. They may have another study in the works, but I don't know.


As is the only conclusion one can come to. You can't say "it" doesn't work because "it" is working for many beekeepers. If it wasn't, they wouldn't have been able to do the study, as there wouldn't have been SC hives to use.

All a study can do is to start checking off some of the why questions. Even this will be very difficult. I am very grateful for Bill's willingness to put up his bees for the study. Some may be surprised by the results, but I think most who have gone through the process of switching over an apiary to SC have experienced an initial year or two of turmoil before things settled down. Of course with the use of SC comb now available, this can lessen the time. I hope the colonies are able to be left alone and given another year or two.

I ask, so the mite levels at the end of the study showed both LC and SC to be about the same. Now, what conclusions can we draw from this?

- Barry


----------



## Keith Benson

Barry said:


> As is the only conclusion one can come to.


Ahhh - but some will try never the less.


> You can't say "it" doesn't work because "it" is working for many beekeepers.


I dunno about that. Perhaps the *it* that is working for those folks is not the *SC it*, but something else.


> If it wasn't, they wouldn't have been able to do the study, as there wouldn't have been SC hives to use.


Unless there was another mechanism and the SC is a red herring, and then there would be SC hives to use. I am not saying that this is the case, but it very well could be. And William would still get a nice shave.



> I hope the colonies are able to be left alone and given another year or two.


Or three or four.



> I ask, so the mite levels at the end of the study showed both LC and SC to be about the same. Now, what conclusions can we draw from this?


That at the end of 11 months that the mite levels are about the same in LC and SC hives in the same apiary. 

Keith


----------



## Keith Benson

Barry said:


> No Jim, no hidden agenda. Just a simple question requiring a simple answer. No need for the rant.
> 
> - barry


A rant? C'mon, that was not a rant. We have all seen him rant, he uses at least an order of magnitude more words for a rant. 

Having said that, I do think that she is in for a rough go. Why? Well, I think that the expectation is that this is supposed to prove of disprove that SC works or not (it won't). And so people will start to head it off at the pass if it appears to fail to match their expectations, and I think this is true of SCers and LCers. Some people have a lot invested in the small cell thing. People tend to protect such things.

I would have done it differently, in large part to head of the criticisms that one can *always* expect for a study looking at this issue. Am I naive enough to think that there is a study that could ever be designed to answer the question of SC efficacy that would make everyone happy? No. I see this as one of what will hopefully be several studies that looks into the issue. It will answer the simple question of, what happens to a subset of colonies kept under the particular conditions of the test. People will extract from that what they will.

There is a list where a number of criticisms have been leveled at the methodology of this particular study. I happen to agree with a number of them, but, it will be interesting to see what will be the response by many of the crtiticizers if this study were to go on for 2-3-5 years and it was then shown to work wonders (I know what the reaction will be if it doesn't). Will the SC proponants still reject it as it as having failed to match their idea of an appropriate study (if they reject it now they best do, to avoid having the contradiction thrown in their faces)? Time may well tell an interesting tale.

Keith


----------



## peggjam

Keith

I don't know if it matters to me whether it is proved one way or the other(well, maybe just a little....), it won't stop me from using sc one way or the other. I do tend to get slightly hot about this topic, an then afterwards I always ask why I let it get to me.....maybe it's not the topic but the one's doing the criticizing that get me hot...

Anyways, it don't much matter to me......


----------



## Billy Bob

Sorry for dropping off...I thought this thread had slowed, but as I can see it has regained some speed. I'll try to answer the questions directed towards me in the last 12 pages. If I missed one please send it through again as I have no desire to read through all of this again.

When will the study be published?
It was sent off about a month ago for review. I really don't know how long it takes for a review but I'm guessing another month or two. I want to say it was sent to The Journal of Apircultural Research.

What was the average 24 hour mite drop?
I don't know off the top of my head. I'll look it up tomorrow and post it in my next reply.

Are the hives still up and running?
YES! Still up and running without any treatments. We'd like to see how they are doing next spring plus we are wanting to conduct more test.

On the issue of mite loads. The study showed that there were more mites in the sc colonies. Yes there was also more bees, but the sc colonies still had higher mite loads, and this was discovered in all of the methods in which the data was collected i.e. sticky screens, pulling larva etc.

Like I said if I missed something send it again...

BB


----------



## Barry

Keith Benson said:


> That at the end of 11 months that the mite levels are about the same in LC and SC hives in the same apiary.


OK, the same conclusion I came away with!


----------



## Michael Bush

>but the sc colonies still had higher mite loads

Why do people keep saying that? Statistically (which is the only way it matters in a study) there was no difference.


----------



## TwT

Michael Bush said:


> >but the sc colonies still had higher mite loads
> 
> Why do people keep saying that? Statistically (which is the only way it matters in a study) there was no difference.


if the ones that did the studies say that SC carried a heavier mite load you cant come up and say they were the same, how you figure??? guest the ones that did the study were wrong!!!! see BillyBobs post above on the mite load part  , Statistically if mite load count on the colonies would have been the same then I think they would have said they were the same... thats why people keep saying that!


----------



## Bizzybee

"No Jim, no hidden agenda. Just a simple question requiring a simple answer. No need for the rant."

Come on Barry!! Don't clip Jim's wings like that!?!?


----------



## BWrangler

Hi Guys,

Compared with my first years small cell experience, J. Berry's doing pretty good. She's reporting what she found and her mite counts aren't off mark from what I observed at the same point in my experience. That was a very dismal time for me as most of my hives failed to survive much beyond that point.

At that time, I considered my own small cell experience a failure. And concluded that it was bee genetics and not cell size that was the most important factor. So, I went to Arizona and visited the Lusby's for myself. Ed Lusby encourage me to continue. I did and the results speak for themselves.

It's certainly premature to draw any conclusions, based on this study, beyond what's been reported.

The real difference in bee behavior and mite count occurred after that first season for me.

It would be shameful if, for any reason, she receives the same kind of treatment that was parted out to those of us who shared our small cell experiences. 

She should be encouraged to continue by those who can do so.

Regards
Dennis


----------



## Michael Bush

>if the ones that did the studies say that SC carried a heavier mite load you cant come up and say they were the same, how you figure???

The results of the study are "there was no statically significant difference". For study purposes that is no difference. Saying there was a slight difference but it was not statically significant would mean the same thing to a scientist as there was no difference. There might be a few more mites on the small cell, but that fact that the difference was not statistically significant is very significant. For study purposes, for practical purposes, for scientific comparison purposes there was no difference.

It's called statistics. If I flip a coin ten times and I come up heads every time. That is not statistically significant. If I flip it a thousand times, the numbers I come up with starts approaching statistical significance. But if I get 498 tails and 502 heads, for statistical purposes these results are identical.


----------



## Barry

Keith Benson said:


> I dunno about that. Perhaps the *it* that is working for those folks is not the *SC it*, but something else.
> 
> 
> Unless there was another mechanism and the SC is a red herring, and then there would be SC hives to use. I am not saying that this is the case, but it very well could be.


Yes, but can't we accept that the "it" for now is simply stabilized bees on SC or natural cell. This part is a fact, yet we still aren't able to prove scientifically what part of that fact is the main "it." Does that make sense? Take Bill's SC hives as an example. He has had them going for 4 or 5 years now using no treatments. That doesn't need to be proven. It's the "what part of that fact makes it work" is the "it" we're after, yes?

- Barry


----------



## Mike Gillmore

I must have missed it along the way, but what was Jennifer's *specific goal* with this experiment?

Was it just a short term comparison of SC vs. LC comb colonies and resulting mite counts?

Or is this an ongoing process that is evaluating not only mite counts but survival, production, and other criteria.. comparing the two?


----------



## Billy Bob

Barry<Take Bill's SC hives as an example. He has had them going for 4 or 5 years now using no treatments. That doesn't need to be proven. It's the "what part of that fact makes it work" is the "it" we're after, yes?>

I agree Barry, something is different. Although, there are a lot more beekeepers not treating with LC than I thought. When I went to SC I never really had this huge bad spell where I lost many colonies. As a matter of fact I did splits, doubling the number of colonies I have.

Mike G <I must have missed it along the way, but what was Jennifer's specific goal with this experiment? Was it just a short term comparison of SC vs. LC comb colonies and resulting mite counts? Or is this an ongoing process that is evaluating not only mite counts but survival, production, and other criteria.. comparing the two?>

Our purpose for the experiment was simple enough. My (non-treated) small cell colonies were not dieing. Since varroa is still considered the #1 colony killer that is what we based the experiment on. Let's compare the mite levels between LC and SC colonies.

While this is a short term comparison that we have produced we would like for it to continue into next year and maybe more.


----------



## Michael Bush

>She should be encouraged to continue by those who can do so.

Exactly.


----------



## Barry

Billy Bob said:


> I agree Barry, something is different. Although, there are a lot more beekeepers not treating with LC than I thought.


More than I thought too. One reason I feel it is very important to try and understand exactly what LC keeprs are doing to see where the "success" may be coming from. Recent history has not been a positive story to LC, so why the apparent change?



> While this is a short term comparison that we have produced we would like for it to continue into next year and maybe more.


That's great to hear, regardless how the results may be.

- Barry


----------



## Gene Weitzel

Barry said:


> More than I thought too. One reason I feel it is very important to try and understand exactly what LC keeprs are doing to see where the "success" may be coming from. Recent history has not been a positive story to LC, so why the apparent change?
> 
> 
> 
> That's great to hear, regardless how the results may be.
> 
> - Barry


One thought comes to my mind. There is some assumption that the bees are selecting for resistance as a result of the pressure the mites are putting on them. Might also the converse be true? In the early days the most virulent mites would cause the speedy collapse of the least resistant colonies. In many cases this could result not only in the demise of the least resistant bees but also the demise of some of the most virulent mites. It would seem to me that as time goes by the mites being a parasite would begin to select for the strains that were most compatible with their host since a parasite that completely destroys its host is on a path that leads to its own demise. Remember that EHB are already 100% resistant to 90+% of all known genotypes of varroa. Only 2 genotypes have shown the ability to reproduce in EHB colonies. There had to be some amount genetic change in the mites for them to be able to make the jump to EHB. I think for this type of reason, any study involving bees and mites needs to look not only at the bees but at the mites as well.


----------



## Keith Benson

Barry said:


> Yes, but can't we accept that the "it" for now is simply stabilized bees on SC or natural cell.
> 
> Your proposal parses like you are suggesting that A) there really is something that has been stabilized though not what that is, and that B) the cell size has something to do with it. I would argue that the data as yet, does not support that.
> 
> All I think you can say is these people, in their particular circumstances, do not treat their bees and ahve colonies with an annual survival of (whatever the figure is). As to why their bees can survive without treatments, that is where the facts leave off and the speculation begins - for now.
> 
> Now Dennis has some interesting data that I think does support that notion, and is in fact part of the reason why I am fiddling with SC myself. Denis put bees on small cell from a variety of sources, in effect negating the genetic differences. He also move bees back to LC and they had issues. This also suggests a primary role for cell size. Are his observations rigerous enough to pass peer review? nah. They are, however, the most compelling evidence that there is something to small cell to date - I think. I would love to see Dennis' efforts expanded and reproduced. That I think would be telling.
> 
> IMHO Dee's results *could* be explained by her relative isolation, and the small founder population she had when her colonies were largely wiped out. Notice I said could be explained, not are explained. The uncertainty cuts both ways.
> 
> 
> 
> This part is a fact, yet we still aren't able to prove scientifically what part of that fact is the main "it." Does that make sense?
> 
> 
> 
> Kinda sort, but not exactly.
> 
> I can take it as a fact that Dee's/Bills'/Michaels bees survive without treatment. Unless someone knows otherwise I think one can call that a fact. I would say the same thing about anyone who makes the same claim unless someone can prove otherwise. But that is it. Most folks are doing so many things to acheive this it makes it hard to see what is the real root of the effects noted. And I think that is where an honest person would leave it when they are talking about facts. If they then want to launch into their personal theory as to why, cool, but it is merely guessing. It might be right, wrong, entertaining, boring, weacky, whatever, but it isn't the same as the fact that the bees are there.
> 
> 
> 
> Take Bill's SC hives as an example. He has had them going for 4 or 5 years now using no treatments. That doesn't need to be proven.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> No it doesn't. No one is asking that to be proven.
> 
> 
> 
> "It's the "what part of that fact makes it work" is the "it" we're after, yes?"
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Yes - the mechanism is what we're after . . . I think, I can't speak for anyone else. I like to know "why". For me the question is, does small cell have anything to do with it, or phrased differnetly, "does housing bees on small cell comb confer a survival benefit to honeybees in the face of varroa infestation", phrased more pragmatically, "is there really anything to this small cell thing?"
> 
> Keith
Click to expand...


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## Keith Benson

Barry said:


> That's great to hear, regardless how the results may be.
> 
> - Barry


'zactly. What we want are the results, not the results that simply tell us what we want to hear.

Someone at some point will have to eat crow on the small cell matter. It might be the pro small cell side, or the anti-small cell side. I don't care who that is, as long as the conclusions accurately reflect reality, no harm, no foul.

Keith


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## Barry

Keith Benson said:


> I don't care who that is, as long as


. . . someone eats crow!


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## Barry

Keith Benson said:


> Barry said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, but can't we accept that the "it" for now is simply stabilized bees on SC or natural cell.
> 
> Your proposal parses like you are suggesting that A) there really is something that has been stabilized though not what that is, and that B) the cell size has something to do with it. I would argue that the data as yet, does not support that.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm trying not to say cell size is it, but we also can't ignore the fact that that is one of the factors that makes it different. A very obvious one, that's all. It may or may not be the reason, or sole reason of it's success.
> 
> - Barry
Click to expand...


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## Moonshae

I'm inclined to believe that there is no one solution, just like there is no one cause. Small cell is one option, combined with others, that can grant success. No one thing is a silver bullet, and no one thing is the big bad cause. Minimizing the causes and maximizing the controls is probably going to be the solution. Of course, I don't have anything to support my opinion beyond what I've read and learned from others. But what I do know, from my experience in general, is that silver bullets rarely occur, and single causes are rarely to blame.


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## NeilV

*No crow involved*

Eating crow suggest that there is some ego involved. Maybe there is (which explains the personal attacks in some posts) but there should not be. If people had opinions based upon their own experience, either for or against the effectiveness of small cell, what is fault in that? On a site like this, people should simply post what they think. I have little experience. The opinions of people with more experience, as a rule, have value to me. 

I do not and should not expect that everybody be right, just that they give their best judgments based on what they know at the time. I hope that everybody keeps and open mind on these issues. I do not expect -- but do wish -- that people would quit turning these questions into a "see, I'm smarter than you" situation. 

As to what I actually think, I think the effectiveness of SC is still undecided. I started two hives on SC this year, and I bought my bees from a SC beekeeper (Fat/Beeman). In August, I did a sticky board test. The 24 hour mite file for both hives was one stinking mite per each hive, with no V. mite treatments. In my opinion, there is some truth to "If it ain't broke, dont' fix it."

On the other hand, I believe that "correlation does not equal causation." Just because I, or Michael Bush, have low mite counts while using SC does not mean that SC is the cause.
Also, the entire point of the scientific method is to tease apart correlation from causation. What a good scientific experiment does is identify causation. 

I have listened to Ms. Berry's entire presentation. She worked hard to designed and carry out a good experiment. About the only unaccounted variable is the concept of mite drift that has been discussed in this and other threads. However, I do not know whether the pro-drift crowd is right or wrong.

...and now I'm gonna go give my kids a bath.

Ndvan


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## Keith Benson

Barry said:


> I'm trying not to say cell size is it, but we also can't ignore the fact that that is one of the factors that makes it different.


Let us be precise. We can say that this is a difference between the groups in the test, but we cannot yet say that it is a factor that makes a difference in the outcome. And that is the meat of it.



> A very obvious one, that's all. It may or may not be the reason, or sole reason of it's success.


Yes, I think we are saying the same thing, only I can read what you wrote two different ways, and that might lead to some confusion.

All I am saying is that certainly the cell size is something that should be different between the groups, but whether that leads to a difference in the groups performance is another matter, i.e. it may well not be a factor.

Keith


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## Keith Benson

Barry said:


> . . . someone eats crow!




Keith "how many character is a minimum response?" Benson


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## Keith Benson

ndvan said:


> Eating crow suggest that there is some ego involved.


And yet there is. There are some folks who have a fair bit lot of their personal credibility tied up in the whole small cell/natural cell thing.



> Maybe there is (which explains the personal attacks in some posts) but there should not be.


You are right. Most people have their stand on the issue based on what they think is best for the bees, beekeeping, and beekeepers. And that is the important thing. There is a tendency not to believe this of the other guy though.



> On the other hand, I believe that "correlation does not equal causation." Just because I, or Michael Bush, have low mite counts while using SC does not mean that SC is the cause.
> Also, the entire point of the scientific method is to tease apart correlation from causation. What a good scientific experiment does is identify causation.


well said


> ...and now I'm gonna go give my kids a bath.


Don't forget to wash behind their ears!

Keith


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## Billy Bob

*Drifting*

Since this thread looks like it may become one of the longest threads in beesource history...interesting question - hey Barry what is the longest thread?

Anyway, how about someone explaining this drifting theory again. The more I think about it the more it makes no since whatsoever.

If the higher mite loads are a result from drifting then:
Why are the LC bees going to the SC colonies? Why doesn't the SC bees drift back to the LC colonies? Why would the SC colonies (with higher bee populations) allow so much drifting?

If the LC bees are drifting to the SC colonies then does this mean the higher bee populations in the SC colonies is a result of the drifting and not the increased number of cells per frame?

If the drifting is the result of the increased bee population in the SC colonies and increased mite loads...Then would that mean if there was no drifting the mite levels would be the same in both SC and LC colonies?

If "mite exchange" is occurring while the bees are out foraging why are the mites attracted to the SC bees? Are the SC bees slower? Smell better? Taste better?

I do not believe that drifting was a factor that resulted in the increased number of mites or bees in the SC colonies.

BB


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## Bizzybee

Afraid I'm with you on this one Bill, and I've yet to get a descent answer on it. But we're probably getting ready to here a few ideas.

As a matter of fact the smaller bees do taste a little better for some reason?! They're just so cute and cuddly though I keep forgetting to pull that dang sting out first!!!


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## TwT

Billy Bob said:


> Since this thread looks like it may become one of the longest threads in beesource history...interesting question - hey Barry what is the longest thread?
> 
> Anyway, how about someone explaining this drifting theory again. The more I think about it the more it makes no since whatsoever.
> 
> If the higher mite loads are a result from drifting then:
> Why are the LC bees going to the SC colonies? Why doesn't the SC bees drift back to the LC colonies? Why would the SC colonies (with higher bee populations) allow so much drifting?
> 
> If the LC bees are drifting to the SC colonies then does this mean the higher bee populations in the SC colonies is a result of the drifting and not the increased number of cells per frame?
> 
> If the drifting is the result of the increased bee population in the SC colonies and increased mite loads...Then would that mean if there was no drifting the mite levels would be the same in both SC and LC colonies?
> 
> If "mite exchange" is occurring while the bees are out foraging why are the mites attracted to the SC bees? Are the SC bees slower? Smell better? Taste better?
> 
> I do not believe that drifting was a factor that resulted in the increased number of mites or bees in the SC colonies.
> 
> BB


good questions Bill, but didn't you read the other post where MB said statistically the mite counts were the same, SC really didn't have more mites than LC..... but you make me think about the drifting and people using it as a issue to say that how the mites even out in a single yard!!!! on the drifting and mites being even or not I cant say, never done a mite count but this is some good reading


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## MichaelW

Hi Bill!

Be sure and check out the conversation on "mites leveling out in yards" here if you have some time to kill. My thoughts on it are clearly no way, no how. There is some bantering in that thread though that puts some people off. But so it is Beesource.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214405


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## MichaelW

Hi again Bill!

Looks like the current thread "Your Holy Book" in the tailgater section has gotten us beat by about >30 pages. I've heard some say small cell is a close second to religion in other ways too.


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## Michael Bush

>hey Barry what is the longest thread?

I think it's the orginal one on PermaComb. My old link to it no longer works since the board was updated. But it was 20 some pages.


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## Barry

Billy Bob said:


> Since this thread looks like it may become one of the longest threads in beesource history...interesting question - hey Barry what is the longest thread?


That would be the "Your Holy Book" thread (629 posts) started by sqkcrk
It's all Mark's fault! The "Permacomb" thread totaled 367 posts. But I'll bet with a little effort, we could get this one over 650. 



> Anyway, how about someone explaining this drifting theory again.


That would leave me out.

- Barry


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## Barry

TwT said:


> good questions Bill, but didn't you read the other post where MB said statistically the mite counts were the same, SC really didn't have more mites than LC.....


I don't claim to speak for Michael, but I believe the point he was making, and one I want to make, is that even if the SC hives had more mites than the LC hives, the difference wasn't enough to make an issue over it. I think the bigger issue, the elephant if you will, is that the SC hives had anywhere near the amount of mites that the LC hives had. That's the significant number! Yet for those of us who have been down this road, it really isn't surprising and nothing to get worked up about. Now, if these number continue to hold after another year or two, THEN even I will be scratchin' my head. But even then, what I'll be looking for is to see if both sets of hives are surviving well with these mite loads. Lots to look at yet. I'm very glad that we will get to see these hives play out over time.

- Barry


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## BULLSEYE BILL

Barry said:


> That would be the "Your Holy Book" thread (629 posts) started by sqkcrk
> It's all Mark's fault! The "Permacomb" thread totaled 367 posts. But I'll bet with a little effort, we could get this one over 650.
> 
> - Barry


Not quite fair. You, Barry, closed the PC thread after fifteen pages.  It would have gone further, not the Holy Book epic, but there were many more threads following it's closure.

Planting for Bees is another long winded thread, and I think a good topic for it's own forum.

As far as drifting goes, it does make a little sense to me. I have seen bees from other colonies let into another hive. I liken it to guests that come over at suppertime. When they bring a dish of food with them, you are happier to see them than if they don't. 

I'm sure that drifting happens all the time, but does it make a statistical difference in the number of mites transferring to different hives? I wouldn't step on that limb. it's too thin.


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## BULLSEYE BILL

Oh, and congratulations to Barry!

You have made more posts this year than the total posts in the previous eight years combined! Thanks for sharing!


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## Barry

BULLSEYE BILL said:


> Not quite fair. You, Barry, closed the PC thread after fifteen pages.  It would have gone further, not the Holy Book epic, but there were many more threads following it's closure.


I see I did. I did that when we were on the old board. With the move to this database board, I don't have a problem reopening it. The search function now is far superior.

- Barry


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## Barry

BULLSEYE BILL said:


> You have made more posts this year than the total posts in the previous eight years combined!


Oh oh, I'm getting sucked back in! Must resist, must resist.


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## MichaelW

Hey Barry, you could bring "Planting for Bees" over to the Alternative Pollinators section. Planting for bees is an important issue for alternative pollinators too and talking about honey bees is certainly appropriate when your talking about something that benefits all bees.

yea, I'm off the small cell topic, but how do you think threads get so long anyway.


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## Flyman

*What size is "Small Cell"*

Ok, I scanned through all 28 pages of this thread and found nothing that describes the size of SC or LC (sorry, new beek question). The different catalogues suggest 3 or 4 different size cells (including drone). Pierco lit suggest their cells are small, but gives no size. 

Just Wondering.


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## Michael Bush

Here's the list of cell sizes:

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


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## Flyman

Thanks Michael, the list helps. What is considered the cell size for "small". Looks like a pretty linear progression through the different foundations.


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## Michael Bush

4.9mm or smaller is what people mean when they say small cell.


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