One other question that everyone asks.  What role do you
think that the ARS documented Africanization of Tucson and
area may have had on the optimal size for your bees? Or was
that a factor.  Seems to me you dispute their observations.

Reply:
Role the Documentation of africanzation of Tucson and area
had on the  optimal size for our bees?  Well, we didn't
back away from following the bees and their needs, and
breeding by older ways not followed much anymore, to see
how they would fall out with the old archive sizes by
latitude and altitude we researched and pieced together,
which they have done fine. We also added a few things we
learned by doing on our own accord. As for the documented
africanization of local area, funny thing is all the early
finds, which  I noted by mapping, were only near those
beeyards sized down with SC we were supplying back then, as
we had free classes yearly many times a year and took our
local bee club with us for foundation changeouts. Also
knowing bees regress to  the +/- of sizing with foundation
with most all locally using the 5.0mm to 5.1mm sizing with
us, and knowing some was smaller, but not enough(to stave
off having to do it again better fine tuning) already for
going on 8 years, a lot of bees both domestic and feral
were already mating back and forth for the better and to
the smaller. Then going smaller like we did and at this
time the 4.9mm ruler measurers were being sold for
africanization etc, with 5.0mm line being drawn for EU bees
and 4.9mm being drawn for AHB bees for FAST ID, the game
FWIW was set. Deciding to go smaller and having many
locally follow us, then put us and others, into the
forbidden zone FAST measurement wise, no matter what the
bees were. On top of that testing in EU showed our bees to
be caucasian like stock, while USDA showed it in blind
testing to be AHB and personally I believe due to money
needs for labs, the problem was never corrected
FWIW..................also because I have never seen a
change in our bees really behaviour wise, but color wise
back to the old mediterranean colorations, and pretty
uniformly too.

As a side note: I also know that mixing several
races/strains makes for hot bees. So does many chemicals
put upon them, and also diet plays into the scenario. So
with the hype for 20 plus years now, it's like who do you 
belive........well, most do as trained. Unfortunately I am
before the time of training like other older beekeepers,
and as we die off/leave, all the newer know is the hype and
what they read, not what physically brought up and shown in
the actual management of bees and how to compare and sort
out, which to me is differnet, was then and still is.

continuing:
I'm hoping that I am understanding you correctly and that
you will clarify any point where I misunderstand.

Reply:
I am replying, long winded maybe but trying to tell you how
I feel and think about things. 

Let me add, we had to follow the bees needs and the sizing
game we couldn't follow, we had to follow the bees needs to
control the mites and secondary diseases and to that end
continue to help our bees. If we had to do it all over
again. We would follow the bees needs.......paper is nilch
when it doesn't work, but that then makes life hard, for
many cannot sort that out.

Dee-




 
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