John Sewell repeats and coments on Dee Lusby's methods and there is one aspect which I would lie to pick up. Dee has reduced varroa and other pests/diseases in her bees so that they can be managed without chemicals. She puts this down to a third each of diet, breeding and cell size. However there is an important part of her method which might in itself be a powerful aid to separating bees from their problems. This is her repeated shake down method which (as I understand it) takes all the old brood comb and developing brood from the colony and forces the bees to start afresh.. Done at the right time this will leave the vast majority of mites behind and also the fungal spores and bacteria which can have such a debilitating effect on the well being of a colony of bees. No wonder her bees apparently bounce with health. I wonder whether somebody as a control could shake down equal colonies onto 4.9 foundation and onto standard size and compare how they do over a season or two. In the UK where we have weather rather than a climate the shake down method is probably not a suitable method but the US where I gather you have a better idea than we have what the weather will be doing from one day to the next would be a good place to do the test. Chris