?>  I remain a sceptic here but wouldn't it be great if there were something 
to it?

For sure but small cell has been around now for many years. So has the 
"treatment free " hypothesis.

We now have a whole range or products to enhance bee health. Do they all 
work?
Are the worth over a hundred bucks a gallon? several bucks a patty?
Are they really needed in order to keep healthy bees?

All the above are faith based for the most part.

The "no treatment" philosophy is so easy a cave man could do it. Sit your 
hive out and breed from survivors (if any). Fine for serious queen breeders 
looking for a survivor bee but *maybe* not a wise choice for the beekeeper 
concerned about the cost of replacement bees.

You get out of beekeeping usually based on the effort put into beekeeping.

Quite a bit of effort is involved with small cell. reducing the size of cell 
alone has not proven to be a magic bullet for hive health nor varroa control 
but at least one person (Dee Lusby) seems to be able to make small cell work 
in her area in order to avoid treatments.

Try for yourself Pete as some sellers of small cell foundation have quit 
selling the product. Years ago we had to order small cell foundation from 
Africa in order to experiment. Dee says a fully drawn small cell frame helps 
at the start but these are not cheap.

bob

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