[log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>There is seems to be insufficient info here.  Was the adult bee population
greater than in the controls?  I am neutral on the small cell effectiveness
- I have watched interest the work by Dee and Dennis Murrel though - but
seems to me 2 months is quite a short period to tell anything of absolute
consequence that would warrant recommendations one way or the other.  Is the
trial still going on?

Yes, well, I can't post the entire article but I will answer questions about
it as they arise. The study lasted over a year 

> We did find treatment effects for adult bee population in July 2007 and
May 2008, in both cases with small cell colonies having significantly more
bees (Table 1; Fig. 1). We are uncertain why this occurred. It is possible
that a 1 kg package of small cell bees contains more bees than a standard
package since bees reared in small cells are significantly smaller than bees
raised on standard cells 

> We started our colonies with as few mites as possible so that we could
monitor mite population growth over time. We found that population growth
rates were similar for both small cell and standard foundations (Fig. 1).
Both groups exceeded published economic thresholds (*3,000 mites per colony
(Delaplane and Hood 1999) by the end of the yearlong study. In an IPM
scheme, one function of a non-chemical control is to slow the pest’s
reproduction rate to delay reaching the economic threshold. Not only did
small cell foundation not slow the growth of varroa populations, but small
cell colonies reached the threshold at the same time as standard colonies 

The efficacy of small cell foundation as a varroa mite
(Varroa destructor) control

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