Dee Lusby wrote:
>but why is 14% or more mites bad in Autumn?

If you read my previous message you will find domumentation supporting my
contention that such a high mite load will kill colonies in an area where
there is real winter, maybe not Arizona "winter". Real winter means
temperatures below 40 for up to 5 months, and periods of up to 2 months with
no flight at all. What happens to bees in the Sun Belt is of less concern to
me. I don't live there and have no desire to. I lived in California for
years and understand the attraction of "endless summer".

The thing that you and all the various small cell advocates fail to
acknowledge, however, is the lack of proven connection between little cells
and any reduction in varroa, or tolerance to varroa on the part of the bees.
Number one, if it is the small cells that are doing it then changing the
combs would be sufficient to reduce varroa in anybody's hives. In other
words, I would buy little cells, put them in, and varroa not a problem.

Nobody is saying this, though. Everyone has OTHER things that they are
doing, such as selecting stock, and various management plans. So the bottom
line is: you can't know which of these factors is responsible. That is the
whole point of a controlled study, which Hans Otto was a part of. But he
didn't have the patience or whatever to wait for the large scale results and
in my opinion: shot himself in the foot.

Bottom line: I don't believe him, or anyone else that refuses to make an
experiment which homes in on the actual question which is "do little cells
actually affect the varroa population". By the way, Erickson said years ago
that he noticed an reduction in varroa with the little cells, but he thought
that the future is in bee breeding. If we can breed a better bee then the
type of equipment, management technique, or locale would be less of an issue.

ps. The fact that little cell foundation is available now indicates one
thing only: somebody thinks they can make money off it. I am not making
money off of bees at all any more, raise them only for fun. Of course, it
isn't much fun to have them die off in the fall, even BEFORE the rough New
England winter.

I. G.

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