> Personally, I have both tried small cell foundation (somewhat casually), visited the Lusby operation several times.... however I have not adopted them. How long did you have your bees on small cell? Did it work as advertised? Four years ago, Keith provided me with a couple of reportedly already regressed small cell packages headed by Caucasian queens, and I hived the packages onto small cell cell foundation. One package never got up to speed. It didn't make it through the first winter. The other hive built up decently and drew the foundation out fairly good, although not perfectly; there were some misshapen cells. It overwintered and did ok the next season. I did see an occasional mite, but didn't take the time to do any mite counts. That hive didn't survive the following winter. I didn't see any diseases that I recognized nor did I see pms symptoms. As mentioned in a previous post I installed some packaged Carniolans onto the drawn small cell combs last year. They built up ok. I got a full super of honey from them, they survived a winter, but dwindled to a small cluster. However, they did build back up this summer. This season, though mites were readily seen on the bees along with deformed wings and the scattered uncapped larvae of pms. Nearby, I had a new top bar populated by a new package this spring. They too are full of mites. The guy who had our bees shipped in from California told me his supplier was having an awful time with mites down there. Did one hive have mites that drifted to the other? It could very well be. If so, which one? He reads BeeL posts and might have something to say on the matter. Regards, Dick Allen -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l for rules, FAQ and other info ---