Hello All,
varroa and cell size still has quite a bit to do with the amount of drone
brood in the hive. Even if cell size was studied by De Jong *what was* the
ratio of *drone brood to worker* ( %) in the study in each group.

Dee has said ( from memory) she tries to limit drone brood to 10%. I would
guess 10% would be the upper limit for my production hives. I am sure many
on the list welcome drone brood but I cull hell out of drone brood for
several reasons I consider sound .

*IN MY OPINION* those which write that bees are happier bees when they are
allowed to raise all the drone brood the bees want is not what I have found
in tests.

What makes bees happy is a strong honey flow not feeding and grooming a 
bunch of drones which have about the same chance of mating with a queen as I 
do winning the lottery..

About five years after varroa arrived the owner of the now gone Thompson
Apiaries (Brunswick, Missouri) came up with the bright idea if if created a
huge area for varroa to reproduce in drone brood then varroa would leave his
worker brood alone. He actually scrapped each frame of Dadant Duragilt
plastic core  waxed foundation (which the bees turned into drone brood)
until he had around 1500 deep brood boxes of 50% drone brood.

I am as serious as a heart attack!

When he could not control varroa and I went to help I had a hard time
convincing him of the error of his thinking. He said to me "You do not want
to buy these brood boxes?"

All I saw was boxes and frames and a bunch of work to return the boxes to
10% (or less) drone brood.

he advertised his equipment in ABJ ( I bought a couple small loads but not
the bees or brood boxes) and everything went fast *but* the brood boxes.
Many beekeepers looked but felt as I did.

I kept looking at the ABJ ad month after month and when the ad stopped 
running
called and he said a beekeeper from Mississippi drove up and bought all the
50% drone brood boxes for the top dollar asked and never questioned the
amount of drone brood. By then apparently( I have no way of knowing)  he was
not telling the story of the way the boxes ended up with an abnormal amount
of drone comb.

A commercial beekeeper in North Missouri (Smith Apiaries)bought the bees
sight unseen so hard to say what happened with the bees with the 50% drone
brood comb.

In other words the boxes contained 9 frames each so *if* all brood then
possible (not probable) the hive could contain 9 frames of drone brood *if*
both brood boxes were laid full (unlikely but you get my point.)

In other words to do a study of three sizes of worker brood then one needs
to know the three sizes of drone brood and more important the percent of
total brood which is drone brood in each of the study hives *in my opinion*.

I have not read the study so maybe De Jong did what I suggest but if he
didn't then his results and conclusions *could* (my opinion)  fall within
the *margin of error*. The worker cell size difference between those 2 small
sizes is very close.

Trying to study or even draw conclusions on studies of varroa and cell size
*in my opinion* is not a black & white area but a huge grey area which
rarely is repeatable in another study.

bob

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