Dennis Murrell wrote:

 I am no longer a commercial beekeeper, but
keep a few hives for my own enjoyment.


Reply:
Great to hear you are keeping bees for your own enjoyment
and hope you conitnue to do so for a long time.

Dennis Murrell continues:
once bees are on small cell sized comb:

- they overwinter better
- they build up faster in the spring
- all bee races can tolerate varroa mites without treatment
- I haven't had any problems with trachael mites
- surplus bees have become a problem :>)
- my average honey production has increased


Reply:
This is good you are seeing this along with others now in
various parts all over the world now. There are many
benefits to natural small cell size. The size 4.9mm was
ended up with because we could not hold our bees in stress
years on larger 5.0mm - to 5.1mm sizing from secondary
diseases, so we fine tuned to the middle of the natural
sizing spectrum, which then allows the bees once they seat
in smaller to go in the direction they want then by
latitude they are kept in..........meaning slightly smaller
still, or slightly larger, and we do this by handmaking
foundation as you know without cell walls, as originally
made just using the pyrimads at the cell bottoms for
impression.


Dennis continues:
But regressing or getting bees onto small cell size comb
has some downsides as well. First, the bees will only draw
out a limited amount of small cell sized comb from
foundation and then only at certain times of the
year. In a northern climate that's less than a month. At
these rates, the mites will overcome a beehive before
enough small cell comb can be drawn out without treating
the hive for mites.


Reply:
Sorry to hear you are having problems, yet over in Norway,
Hans-Otto Johnsen is doing fine and helping others learn to
do so, and Keith Malone up in Alaska seems to be doing well
also. I how you can figure out how to change the field
management in your area to try to draw out more.


Dennis continues:
And equally important, HOW cell size fits into the
broodnest structure and WHY bees have such trouble drawing
out enough small cell sized comb in a standard hive.


Reply:
Again, sorry you are having problems. Wished when you were
here visiting for a few days you could have had the time to
visit our out beeyards with full sized coloines up in the
hills to see how this side of the problem is worked. Many
having problems have done this to overcome it, and even
have come back on subsequent trips to fine tune the field
managment with hands on training.

Dennis continues:
It is on these points, the hows and whys, that I
respectively disagree with the Lusbys. They have focused on
the bee itself, while I have focused on the broodnest
structure. This difference in focus results in significant
differences in colony management.



Reply:
This I disagree with, as we have focused on cell size for
the  environmental changes it creates for first change,then
diet of honeybees, and lastly outbreeding high up in the
hills on El Nino good years and not drought ones. Which
means we pull in on drought years and hold, and then in El
Nino years with wet seasons we go into breeding early and
late with the lunar sun cycles of early spring and late
fall (excepting thelytoky which is done in the other two
sun cycles for stress is needed for change).

Was raised believing that with survivalability you then
work up bee numbers to then gain variability, and with
numbers gained and variability, you then gain potential to
breed as you gain control of your area.But this has also to
mean being able to breed back and forth in Nature's circle
and not man's artificially created one, as they seem to
split out and seperate somehow. Think Br Adam said that a
minimum of somewhere to 100-300 hives was needed to do this
by the way for breeding bees.

But to refresh you on the three parts I/we key to for
environment (cell size), diet, and breeding you can go to:

http://www.beesource.com/POV/lusby/

and there you will find a FREE book I wrote years ago with
about 22 chapters or so, now that probably needs updating
and final chapters finsihed/added.



 Dennis finishes:

I hope my observations show how import cell size and
broodnest structure is to the colony health and function.
And that they will act as a spring board helping beekeepers
to work with their bees.


Reply:
Yes, helping others onto a clean sustainable beekeeping
system will help all of us I am sure.

Regards,

Dee A. Lusby
Small Cell Commercial Beekeeper
Tucson, Arizona
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OrganicBeekeepers/





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