"This is not quite what Dr. Seeley is implying.  In reading it,  he has adopted some of the other techniques,  and assumed the wild bees perished.  He is simply reporting that is not hte case,  and his work why they are doing okay.  I have not seen him imply or say that it was the solution or the "only solution"  he is very dutifly and accurately reporting the findings.
In that we may find a valuable piece of information that can be applied to our current methods and goals for bigger hives and honey production.
The key in problem solving is completly understanding the "good"  and the bad.  in thois case Dr. Seeley is explaining the good.   Randy and others have done great at explaining the bad,  now  the goal is to figure out how to adjust and compensate."

Felt this needed to be repeated.

I've done a form of what Seeley has learned from his small hive discovery's for several years. The biggest difference is I don't let the bees head for the trees and it's not limited to small hives. The term I use for what I'm doing is called Fly back Swarming. On a small scale it allows me to produce and select my own replacement queens. It's just a matter of juggling the chosen queen cells into the culled queens colonies. For those that choose to treat, it offers a perfect opportunity to knock the mites down during the broodless periods. Plenty of options that can be applied into ones management plans and come out with desirable results. Just takes a little thought and experimentation.    

 As far as I can tell Dr. Seeley seems to be planning much more research on the possibilities in this area on producing honey and using bigger hives. I'm so glad we have Tom Seeley and that he is able to research the things he does. 

If you haven't seen the video from his presentation on this topic in Germany have a look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVj4A6F1D_s   

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html