Brian Fredericksen wrote:

> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3081789258595842918&pr=goog-sl

Another great find. The most interesting point I came away with is that the small cell beekeeper she worked with 
who has few problems with his bees is a Joe W. type of beekeeper and captures feral colonies. So we are back to 
breeding bees for the area, a fundamental practice that many of us who are hobby beekeepers have practiced for 
quite a long time.

The conclusion I came to from the presentation is that small cell has little to do with Varroa management. The 
feral colonies he got had cell sizes all over the map. Those were the survivors. So cell size had nothing to do 
with survival. He also had colony losses so even selected among the survivors.

Also, hygienic selection results in bees that handle Varroa.

Regression failure has little to do with cell size and more to do with the bees. Their failure would have 
happened even if the cell size was not changed. What is happening is Varroa resistance is being selected for. 
Based on what I have seen on this list, Nature can arrive a that point in less than seven years if you start 
form scratch.

I have kept bees for about 18 years and have never lost all my colonies over that time. I usually have I have 
had them on mostly 5.3. I started a small cell experiment and lost one colony last year and the rest this year, 
so my small cell experiment resulted in the first time loss of all my colonies.

I must note that when my cancer was detected some four years ago, my beekeeping dropped to zero and my bees 
suffered. But two survived even with neglect. After my surgery and recovery, I started paying more attention to 
them and bought some 4.9 and 5.1 foundation. I started with colonies that were productive on large cell and, 
before I started the "regression", had survived many winters in Maine with vigor.

Needless to say, I am going back to my old, tried and true method of keeping bees, which is to manage for 
survival and production. Split the good ones and forget the bad. It is obvious that the bees did much better on 
a larger cell size which matches with what is found naturally in my area.

It is not cell size. It is the bee.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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