David said:

> So, the question is what is cheaper in the long run, 
> to  treat and not take the loss initially, or not 
> treat and incur the compounded  expense of treating 
> to keep colonies alive artificially.

This statement assumes that merely taking losses once
will somehow provide one with bees resistant to all
known diseases and pests in subsequent years.

I'd offer that there is a very high probability 
that "taking the losses" will be required year 
after year after year and that both types of 
costs will "compound year after year".  

Dick Marron said:

> ...bigger is different...

When speaking of communicable diseases, it should
be clear that more potential hosts per unit area 
increases the odds that disease will spread between
all the hosts.  That's not "different".  That's
"more of the same".  I'm not sure if the relationship
is linear, but there sure is a correlation.  I think
that the "two dozen hives per yard" rule of thumb has
a basis in this specific performance curve.

I don't know of any "emergent behavior" that appears
when I take a yard from 6 hives to 12 or from
12 hives to 24. If physics had any help to offer to
beekeepers, I'd be a much better beekeeper!  :)


Randy said:

>  What works at one scale may not 
> work at all at another scale.

But this is a one-way street.
Many things don't scale UP, but anything
can scale DOWN.

There are lots of practices that are too 
labor-intensive to scale up above 50, 100, or 
250 hives, but there are zero practices from
larger operations that don't "scale DOWN" to
any/all of the smaller operations.

Beekeepers fall into two camps - some moving
very slowing out of respect for the bees, and
the others moving as fast as possible out of 
respect for the bees.  The first camp has time 
to sing to their bees, the second camp is gone 
before the bees even realize that they are in 
the yard.

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