Hello James & All,

James said:
> I think a simple comb-replacement schedule for brood comb would make
> more sense for most operations.  Ever since Dr. David Banner's problems
> with gamma rays
> I've never viewed it as a practical large-scale solution.

At the ABF convention in Austin (height of the CCD issue) I felt the same 
way as Jim when Dave Hackenberg asked if I wanted to come in on getting 
boxes radiated.   The price for radiation was very close to the cost of comb 
replacement . Comb replacement involves other cost but in my opinion ( and 
was my opinion at the time) that the result of bees on new comb was *in my 
opinion* a better result than bees on *old* dark comb on which mitacides had 
been used for years.

If you go back and look at my BEE-L posts of the time you will see I felt 
the Beltsville/Hackenberg project was poorly done. I would have placed a 
control of the package bees used on new comb for comparison. Those package 
bees did not come from a major supplier but from a very very small 
beekeeper. I am not saying a problem existed with the package bees but 
certainly a possible unknown.

Also you would have answered the question if it would have been better to 
simply replace the comb.

A year later in personal conversation with Dave he said in his opinion the 
irradiated comb hives only did slightly better than the non radiated hives. 
Please understand that Dave said a obvious difference was seen but not sure 
the cost was justified.

In my opinion an abnormal amount of queen problems happened during the study 
and the reasons for the queen problems has never been explained.  Was the 
queen problems from the Hackenberg comb? A control on new comb might have 
provided answers.

I am sharing information obtained from personal conversation ( I have Dave's 
cell number in my pocket) and we both are puzzled why the radiated boxes did 
not fair better. Again the radiated hives did better but not up to 
expectations.

bob

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