Randy has an interesting and important point about scaleability.  I  guess I 
am one of those "part time" beekeepers right now.  The big thing  keeping me 
from expanding is the mortality rate.....I have to figure that out  first or "I 
will lose my shirt."  It is not treat and incur the heavy  losses (deadout 
cost and lost production cost....T&L, wages, lost equipment  in there too) until 
I reach equilibrium ( which I am assuming is attainable  since bees have 
lived for many thousands of years thru all sorts of issues),  or treat and incur 
the heavy medication cost (medication, T&L, Labor)  with having to jump from 
medication to medication and the contamination issues  which smacks back to 
deadout cost.  
 
I have made 100 foundationless frames of two different types; enough for 10  
brood chambers to test on my splits and packages next Spring.  I am hoping  
this will improve the "survivability" of the colonies:
- can develop what ever cell size bees want with whatever mixture of worker  
and drone cells
-cheaper cleanup cost from dead outs
-cheaper - do not incur the foundation cost
-freer of contaminants
- easier to rework frames after rotate out  combs/frames
 

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