> Well most here I imagine will not like my answer

Aww.  C'mon.  That's a terrible way to start.  Kinda gets a person's back
up.  You know we love your answer.

Many of us anticipate your explanations as eagerly as we await our daily
'Joke of the Day' email.  (Perhaps a few of us find the assertion, repeated
often, that there is one single cause for all the ills that befall honey
bees to be a joke that is wearing thin, but then they'll likely have you in
their kill file).  Most of us who understand logic appreciate the
predictable chuckle.

> This is the time period of the 1920s and 1930s when
> beekeepers with the help of manufacturers first started
> really upsizing workercombs in the broodnests.

Also the time when automobiles became popular and roads were improving.
Just to mention the obvious.

Post hoc ergo proper hoc is a popular fallacy.
(http://skepdic.com/posthoc.html)

> To control the harder secondary diseases and the first
> onces to appear, we had to regress down again to 4.9mm top
> tolerance for our foundation. We now again run a natural
> infestation rate of 1-2% for all foul broods combined,
> including chaulk, and now minor parasitic mite problems.

4.9 mm is an appropriate size of cell for the AHB that apparently
predominate in Arizona.  Also apparently, as AHB moved into your area and
you selectively bred from and adapted to this stock (which has strains that
are reportedly quite disease and parasite resistant) you discovered you had
better success.

> Does small cell size work. Well, we are now 700 colonies
> with three deep unlimited broodnests plus honey supers and
> planning to expand this year to 900-1,000 colonies. We are
> now also going into 6 years plus on this second regression.

Post hoc ergo proper hoc?  Or are you running controls?  Science demands
this.  Have you hives on normal sized foundation in similar locations under
similar management to show what the influences of the smaller cell size are?
Or is this a matter of faith?

Over the timespan you have been adapting there are many other influences
that have changed.  What is to say that the size of cell has any influence
whatsoever, or that the change in cell size is not due to a change in
genetic stock?  I understand that some in the south are in denial that they
are now running AHB.  Apparently some even greased the skids under the
Tucson lab when it got to talking about this.

> Foul brood is no longer a problem. We take care of it the
> old way by pulling the infestation and melting the combs
> down and reprocessing the wax in a Kelly wax melter.

Seems pretty much like what the Auzzies and Kiwis have been doing on normal
comb with similar results.  In fact, I believe Ohio had AFB down to
something like (working from memory) 1/10% without medication at one time,
without drugs.

B Haver