> Personally, I have both tried small cell foundation (somewhat
casually), visited the Lusby operation
several times.... however I have not adopted them.

How long did you have your bees on small cell? Did it work as
advertised?

Four years ago, Keith provided me with a couple of reportedly already
regressed small cell packages headed by Caucasian queens, and I hived
the packages onto small cell cell foundation.   One package never got
up to speed.  It didn't make it through the first winter. The other
hive built up decently and drew the foundation out fairly good,
although not perfectly; there were some misshapen cells.  It
overwintered and did ok the next season. I did see an occasional mite,
but didn't take the time to do any mite counts. That hive didn't
survive the following winter. I didn't see any diseases that I
recognized nor did I see pms symptoms.

As mentioned in a previous post I installed some packaged Carniolans
onto the drawn small cell combs last year. They built up ok. I got a
full super of honey from them, they survived a winter, but dwindled to
a small cluster. However, they did build back up this summer. This
season, though mites were readily seen on the bees along with deformed
wings and the scattered uncapped larvae of pms. Nearby, I had a new top
bar populated by a new package this spring.  They too are full of
mites.

The guy who had our bees shipped in from California told me his
supplier was having an awful time with mites down there.  Did one hive
have mites that drifted to the other? It could very well be. If so,
which one? He reads BeeL posts and might have something to say on the
matter.

Regards,
Dick Allen

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