From: Peter L Borst <[log in to unmask]>

>This cracks me up. This week we have dismissed Seeley,....

Nothing would make me happier than to drop this.  I very much like Tom, and I know that this kind of chatter about him on the internet isn't going to make him feel good...likewise for the involved undergrad.  But this study is published, peer reviewed, and instead of acknowledging that it is lacking in many areas, you have chosen to ignore my critique and keep touting it simply because of a name.

Seeley wasted two years trying to produce SC comb in the honey supers of LC bees.  If we can establish as a fact that despite the difficulties in "regressing", that many beekeepers have in fact regressed (even Allen likely has a lot of good 4.95mm comb drawn out at this point...albeit on plastic), and that SC foundation can be drawn...and that the internet is filled with advice and discussion on how best to regress....not a one suggesting SC comb in the honey supers of LC bees....then where did Tom get his protocol, and why did he think it would work?

"All combs will be built by providing colonies with honey supers filled with frames of either small-cell or standard-cell foundation. The bees will build these combs while filling them with honey. At the end of the summer, we will extract the honey from these combs so that they can serve as brood combs the following summer."

...and it didn't:

"I have tried various methods for getting bees to build small-cell combs but have not yet found a method that results in combs filled with small cells. Instead, I get combs that are a weird mixture of small cells and quite large cells. So, despite my best efforts over the past two summers, I have not yet performed the key experiment. Given that I have just one more summer of support in this project, I will perform the key experiment next summer using combs of small cells that are made of plastic and that are commercially available. Doing the experiment this way is not ideal, for these combs are too expensive for general use by beekeepers,..."

and

"The principal outcome over the past year has been a Change in Knowledge. Specifically, I have learned just how difficult it is to get honeybees to build combs made of smaller than usual cells. This is an important finding, because beekeepers are being encouraged to have their bees build combs with small cells as a means of controlling the mite Varroa destructor, and beeswas comb foundation is being sold to guide the bees to build these combs, but at this point no way has been found to get bees to reliably construct combs of small cells. I now know that I cannot recommend this approach to Varroa control. "

...so he doesn't recommend SC as an approach to varroa control based upon the fact that he can't get the comb drawn.  This is not a casual exzperement by a beekeeper with some time to tinker around, he makes a living as a researcher.

I expect that even the most ardent detractors of SC would have made helpful suggestions in how to successfully regress the bees without wasting two years and giving up if asked.

>....Ellis & Ellis, Gerry Hayes, Erickson, Ingmar Fries -- not to mention Marla Spivak and countless others who are no doubt sadly mistaken in their understanding of basic bee biology.

First of all, we have not even begun to address these studies...the overall observation that none of them followed a protocol that anyone who does claim success would expect to bring positive results stands, but we have yet to look at the details and how they did/might affect the outcomes, and how they do or do not support the claims of the authors....we can go there...I'd like to go there, but I think it's a waste of time if the issues can't (or won't) be discussed.  Let's start with the Seeley study.

>On the other hand, we have the author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Beekeeping" touting the old small cell chestnuts

Thank you for the plug Peter...yes, my wife and I did write The Complete Idiot's Guide to Beekeeping.  It is predictable that the only 2 star review was cherry picked in an attempt to discredit me.  Full disclosure:  I asked no one to write a review of our book.  I gave out no free copies for review (although I'm sure the publisher did...I know of one review that came from a free book from the publisher).  Our average rating on amazon is 4.5 stars.

The review posted here, however, resembles an email sent to our publisher...one which demanded that our book be taken off the shelf and rewritten by a panel of "experts" (of the email authors choosing)...of course there was a threat of litigation that accompanied these demands, along with a laundry list of "SC doesn't work" study citations.

What the emailer didn't realize is that there are 4 pages devoted to small cell.  Certainly it gets mentioned throughout the book as what we do, but the vast bulk of the book is devoted to good beekeeping.  It would be hard not to realize how little of the book is devoted to SC if one had actually read the book.  In the end, there was a lot of support from our readers and the publisher told the emailer (after repeated emails) to go pound sand.

It's also interesting that the reviewer has already read Beekeeping for Dummies and The Backyard Beekeeper.  I'm not sure how much more "new information" one would expect in reading a third beginners book (on any subject).  We discussed the methods that we actually use, I will leave it to someone else to write a book on "non-hard chemical treatments", it is not my area of expertise.

Since Peter posted an atypical review of our book from Amazon, I hope that I'll be allowed to post one that is more typical...written by Michael Bush (who bought his own copy off of Amazon):

"I've known Dean and Laurie for a while. I've heard them speak. I've read their posts on bee forums. So I had high expectations. They were exceeded. Something as complex as bees and beekeeping is very difficult to explain to a complete neophyte as the complexity and interrelatedness of everything makes it difficult to know where to start. I really didn't think anyone could write something so basic and still cover the essentials, but I think they have succeeded beyond any of the hundreds of beginning beekeeping books I've read over the years. Thanks Dean and Laurie for writing this. Now I know where to send a beginner for a book."

deknow

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