Jim suggests the ocassional dwindling I see may be caused by Nosema Cerana
and suggests I check before destroying more comb.

That has ocurred to me.  However, in each of the past two years I have been
diligent about making fall bee collections by yard and sending them to
Beltsville.  They have reported 'no nosema', which astounds me.  I am
careful to collect crawlers as well as bees from the brood nest.  50 miles
away is a commercial migratory beekeeper who gets reports of *millions* per
bee.  But then, he is migratory and goes to FL and ME every year.

To me, this is truly a minor problem.  Perhaps 1-2 observation hives a year,
plus 3-4 production hives.  On the other hand, I started beekeeping in the
late 60's and never saw such symptoms before Varroa.

Someone questioned what I meant by 'contaminated comb'.  I meant
contamination with fluvalinate and coumaphous.  Although I no longer use
either, I did for several years and it will be several more years before my
hives are free of combs used during that period.
In the last two years I had bees draw about 1200 deep combs, but with about
200 hives I have a ways to go in replacing comb.

Lloyd

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