>Hey Bush, thanks for the link. Did you go to small cell I assume?
Yes.
> Did you lose hive while regressing?
My first try I started late and the mites were already bad. So I used Apistan that fall, and the mites were resitant to the Apistan. I lost all of them, not from regression, but from Apistan resitant mites.
After that I've had no more than normal losses from mice and small clusters.
> I have read some posts suggesting that varroa mites become a non issue once small cells are done.
That is my experience.
> It seems too good to be true! but makes sense.
Yes it does.
> I really don't like the idea of our manipulating bees to produce more honey at the expense of their natural defenses. Using so many drugs and pharmaceutikills seems like factory farming to me, kind of kills the connection to nature.
Exactly.
> I asked him about small cell and he said there was no evidence that it helps, no university research to back it. He has a Phd in apiculture and is a recognized authority in our province, teaching at a local university and on the honey council board. I didn't want to p him off because he seems so adament about it, but do you know where I can get my hands on some cell size research?
No one seems seriously interested in it. All the negative stuff is very short term (like less than a month) very small scale (like one hive) and does not in any way regress the bees or follow Dee Lusby's proposed methods.
Most of them seem to involve AHB because they build smaller cells. Here's a couple of studies:
http://www.funpecrp.com.br/gmr/year2003/vol1-2/gmr0057_full_text.htmhttp://www.edpsciences.org/articles/apido/pdf/2002/01/Martin.pdf?access=ok#search='study%20cell%20size%20AHB'
According to this mathematical model, if you shorten the precapping time by 8 hours or the post capping time by 8 hours it's enough to stablize the Varroa population:
http://www.csl.gov.uk/science/organ/environ/bee/varroa/ModellingBiologicalApproaches.pdfI've consitently observed a day shorter precapping and a day shorter post capping times. Do you own study. Set up an observation hive and mark the cells when the queen lays and note when they are capped and when tthey emerge. Everyone I know of who has done it has had the same results.
>I am very opposite opinion with Michael. Plenty of experienced beekepers have lost their hives when they have tried small cell. There are reseaches that small cell cannot protect against varroa.
I have yet to see any research that regressed the bees (actually got bees form smaller cells), and kept them for any length of time. All of them I've seen would have been predicted to fail by anyone who knows anything about small cell beekeeping.
>Dee Lusby has been keeping small cell for a LONG time.
Coming up on 20 years I believe. Of course the first 16 or 17 I didn't hear anyone say she had Africanized bees, but now that's the excuse. Many of us have been doing it five years or more.
>Be careful about what you read on the Internet and try to distingiush between actual facts and wishful thinking!
I have never asked anyone to take anything on faith. Monitor the mite levels and you'll see if it's working. Measuring results is not wishful thinking.