> 1. A super full of straw... > 2. Follower boards... > 3. Bottom supering... > 4. Slatted Racks... > 5. 'Cedar' wood... But can you "cedar" connection here? The connection is that all of the above can be accurately described by even the most cynical beekeeper as at least "can't hurt". As long as a management practice does not actually kill the bees over the short term, there is sure to be someone who will advocate it as the "silver bullet" that, by inductive logic, MUST be the reason for their success. The good news is that bees are not only tolerant of, but can often thrive in the face of not just neglect, but outright abuse. If bees were less adaptive and robust creatures, more beekeepers would learn about and use "statistical confidence" more often. But I must admit that I do not know of any specific rigorous studies that have proven that any of the above do NOT have any positive effect on harvest, colony survival, etc, and there is at least one study underway now that is said to have collected data that might provide support for the use of follower boards, at least in winter (Robert Madsen, of Chief Dull Knife College as mentioned very recently here on Bee-L). If you want to see at how far down the garden path a bright person might be led towards making "the error of causality", one need only consider the experiences of anyone who started keeping bees in the mid-Atlantic states in 2000. Three solid years of severe drought, followed by last year, where spring brought so much rain that many hives were starving in June, and summer brought only more rain. These folks cannot be blamed for having "learned" how to keep bees under conditions that everyone with longer experience would consider "extreme". What "worked" for them in 2000 - 2003 would have been anything but "optimal" in 2004, and none of these years will be a basis for success this year, assuming that we will be "back to normal precipitation". Regardless of how "good" their data and statistics might be, their entire data sample is not just skewed, it is completely warped. Long ago, I played tennis every week with a statistician - when she told me I was only average, she was just being mean. :) jim :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::