Peter Borst:
You overlook the main point of the excerpt I posted:

> none of the early studies separated cell size with other
African(or Africanized) characteristics, such as a shorter
post- capping period.
 
Reply:
Oh, I sorry, with your reading of these studies here. I
thought having been through this before with me you would
have remembered for shorter post-capping period what we had
done with our bees way back in the early to mid-1980s even
we had checked out with our first regression with smaller
cell size to 5.0mm even. So cell size would already be
seperated here from African as our state of Arizona wasn't
even declared AHB on paper until about mid-1990s
thereabouts.


http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/abjnov1989.htm

Also, Peter,you say:
What he means is that if if you use Africanized bees, you
don't know if it's the small cells or some other factor,
such as hygienic behavior,post-capping time, or perhaps an
as yet unidentified character that controls varroa. 

Reply:
Here is some more of the other factors we were considering
back then for controlling varroa in an overall program,
that I am still following by the way and many I am helping!


http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/apiacta1992.htm

Also Peter here is some data showing smaller cell size
making a difference in just months of using, since only
thing changed was the cell size to smaller yet.Please note
that the bees were already down much in size and we were
now fine tuning for secondary control of fouls fwiw.OUr
bees were living with 5.0mm to 5.1mm sizing, but we needed
more control of stress items.Again, nothing changed but the
size for putting in new to hives. I/we had spent most of
'96 making the foundation for using getting equip ready,
and spring '97 switched for secondary controls, again
changing only the cell size. Bees still the same, and even
today haven't seen differences fwiw for the worser, in fact
only seen for the better.


http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/abjdec1997.htm

D-



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