Hello Joe & All,

> so I must renege my support of the experiment if it
is carried out in such a manner with mixed cell sizes.

I had hoped Dennis Murriel would have commented on our earlier discussions
but Dennis did not. Dennis has been a small cell advocate from the start.
Dennis believes all the small cell needed to see what you and others report
is 4 frames in the brood nest. He uses no treatments. He dose report the
things you say you see. Although because he goes about small cell
differently he is the "black sheep" of small cell.

To use a page from your beekeeping on feral comb.

Have you ever seen small cell size throughout the colony? I NEVER have. To
me forcing small cell throughout the hive (honey storage) is unnatural.

>New bees are   faced with a barrage of advice on what they “should be doing
with their bees“.  Advice ranging from “treat your bees for varroa or they
are going to die” TO “requeen every year”.

Treat without testing I do not recommend. I have always practiced IPM and
recommended IPM.

However most commercial beekeepers realize IF they do not treat at least
once a year then hives today hives start crashing with varroa. Most base
treat decisions  on the amount of varroa found in drone brood.

Requeen each year has value to commercial beekeepers but certainly does not
apply to the hobby and sideline sector. 90% of my hives have got young
prolific queens settled in and laying. If I had had the time the other 10%
would have been requeened. I am only talking about production colonies. I
feel young queens pay dividends instead of cost. Even two year queens like
to hit the trees.


 > In most cases the evidence shows that the queen performance is fine

Also shows today queen supercedure is higher than anytime in our beekeeping
history. I am running a test with 75 marked queens to see exactly how bad
early supercedure is. So far only two I have found with supercedure cells
and queen laying. In one case the queen had a good pattern but lacked the
brood of the other queens . In both cases I left the large nicely formed
supercedure cells. Mistake? Does the beekeeper know better than the bees?

>and
they do NOT need treatments OR other such advice given.

Many would argue about telling new bees that small cell is the answer to all
their problems. To simple for one reason. A well rounded knowledge of
beekeeping is needed today.

Even on various lists I have seen small cell advocates recommend a possible
varroa treatment until the bees are fully on small cell.
New bees depend on their mentor for sound advice. If you look in the various
catalogs selling small cell foundation you see a warning is given that small
cell should be used with caution by new beekeepers.

>  So the first thing I teach a new bee is always “base your decisions on
what your assessments of your colonies conditions reveal, and NOT by what
others say you should do”.

I do agree with the above but went you have got a mentor you blindly follow
along.

>Why a small cell beekeeper having all the evidence at their disposal,
would depend on ‘some guy on the internet’

What small cell evidence? Real proof of the benefits of small cell has been
lacking. Could you point us to some real evidence other than what we are
told by "some guy named Joe on the internet"?

>,,, I am not testing
>Dee's method of downsizing but Dennis Murrels.

You say above that you are testing ‘downsizing’.
This is not a ‘small cell test’ then?

 Once the frames are drawn then I can arrange in any fashion I want. Dee
understands what I am doing even if she would prefer simply following her
footsteps. The reason Dee wants at least some testing done of the fully
drawn small cell.

I have seriously considered a trip to Dee's but she is 1300 miles each way.
I test small cell mostly for my own information. I have tested many
beekeeping hypothesis before and never even spoke of those tests on the
internet.

Sound science does not support the small cell hypothesis. One of the reasons
I am planning on testing.

Many colonies were on 30-50 year old black comb when varroa hit and they
mostly died. Very small cells size from years of brood rearing. Worker bees
raised in drone cells which I have seen for over four decades when the bees
run out of worker cells are normal size when they emerge. Bee grow during
the first week after emerging. Genetics play a bigger roll than cell size
our researchers have always said.

 Science does not support small cell as the answer for all our beekeeping
problems.

Bob


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