Bill Truesdell
Bath, ME
Wrote:
"You do not need to wear a lab coat to practice science. Anyone on this
list can do so, without a grant. But you do need to follow the protocols
so that it can be shown that your results are not influenced by other
factors and that others can do the same and get the same results. Which
is really not too much to ask for when you may be betting the farm, or
in this case, apiary."
        Do you really expect to get away with that statement Bill. The
Lusby's don't expect from people who try 4.9 foundation to do nothing more
than allow the cells that there bees make what they want to. That is the
intent and purpose of 4.9 foundation to find what that cell size and keep it
or regress to a smaller cell size. Fat bees make fat cells. The Lusby's were
placed in an all to frequent situation parish or fight back with a new
method only after spending a fortune on chemicals that didn't work for them.
Those results are showing up in Mass. This year the industry in that state
crashed from Varroa and Trachea mites. I know this from my neighbors who had
a family truck farm there and lost all of there hive there.  I was to teach
a young girl to become a beekeeper here as she would be following into that
farm when she became of age. Now the whole family has decided not to
continue in beekeeping.
        Since I live in Tucson were the Lusby's live I know of the painful
experience that they went through. They have 33 remote sites and are being
hounded out of discussion by the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center that is run
by the U.S.D.A. The research that is being done there is very little or none
at all. Why is that Bill?
        I commend the Lusby's choice of holding on with what they know and
holding on to the convections that they know work with there bees. The
current methods that the Lusby's used chemicals and other so called approved
methods had a result of a loss of 1300 hive losses. They built up the
remainder with what is now about 700+ hives with gathering swarms and
splits. Does that work for you now Bill? They have gladly given the
information on how to do this for free in several states and at their home
yard which is there home as well. Third world nations have sent people to
see what it was all about because they wanted to use bees even with the Mite
from hell. Others are using it from Illinois to Sweden and I too have one
hive on 4.9 foundation but then I only have one hive right now.
        The pedigree of a bee is not what they are looking for either. That
works out just fine as the bees with less hybrid in them adapt better to 4.9
foundation. My swarm  was living in a bird house and was cut out of it by
the Lusby's for me. I don't have the skills to do that at the time but I
could do it now. Why is this occurring because the population of wild bees
in Arizona is figured to be at a ratio of 1 swarm to 1.3 acres. This is a
state were most of the land is owned by the U.S. government. The Carl Hayden
Bee Research Center knows this too. The sites that they have are on
government land and not in private lands. They wanted to know what the local
beekeepers had for stock so that they could "Factor out" those hive near
their sites. The Lusby's rejected their offer after a contractual agreement
was broken by that same lab. The Carl Hayden Bee Research Center hasn't done
a single thing since then and is affectionately known as the "Rest Home" for
Entomologist waiting to retire from Government service of the U.S.D.A.
        While the Lusby's were honing the theory of 4.9 foundation the worst
possible thing happened they had a fire. This occurrence set them back more
than a couple of years but now they are running fine and working hard doing
what that family has done for six generations in Arizona. They are the
second oldest beekeeping family in Arizona and the other is in Yuma. While
they do not run their operation the same as the one in Yuma is Migratory
beekeeping and the Lusby's are fixed on some 33 sites. This year they have
what would only be considered to be a good year. I have only known them for
about five months and have found them to be freely giving of information and
patient. I owe them my bees and to some extent my site as well.
        This microclimate in Arizona is different than that in most of the
eastern seaboard and mid-west. The honey flow in the upper Sonoran Desert is
explosive and then dies for two months and begins again sometime in the
middle of September to October or until the frost kills off the honey plants
bloom. Rain plays such a large role here that a beekeeper with the
experience in what goes on in January rainfall will tell you what to expect
in may and June as far as the honey flow. Above average rainfall in January
rings bells and is amplified if it continues in February and March.
        Micro climate is a variable in the use of 4.9 foundation as well as
the hybrid bees. Since they both can not be predicted as to just what will
happen these factors must be considered when employing such method. The
Altitude is another considerable factor as it does place some actions by the
bees in there behavior. There are some good traits under 4.9 foundation too.
The bees tend to their cells and have an increase in numbers as the queen
lays more per frame than other size foundation. There is more to the Lusby's
methods than just cell size but that will have to wait for another time as
it isn't in this discussion.
        When I had to move  my hive I had trouble and the Lusby's kindly
allowed me to place my hive in the closest site that they had. While there,
in the middle of the night, I observed the rest of the hives in that apiary.
Bees cluster at night in the desert or any other place for that matter on
the outside of the hive structures. The hives in question were a good five
deeps high and the clusters were enormous. That site two days later produced
17 deeps of surplus honey and that was at the end of the honey flow for the
first part of the year at that site. That site has been downsized from more
than twenty to what it is today. The reason is purely to keep the insanity
of the "Killer Bees" or "African Killer Bees" and the neighborhood
convenience store acrossed the street. The Carl Hayden Bee Research Center
really helps here as they have given out to the media there option of the
majority of the bees in Arizona as being African Bees and there you have
your hard working government employees hard at work working against the very
industry they are to aide and improve on Research. (Like I said the Carl
Hayden Bee Research Center & Rest Home has done nothing in major or minor
Research for beekeeping in several years.) While the Lusby's have been
working as beekeepers. Who is really doing the work here the Beekeepers or
the Queens in the rest home?
        When a great resource of high research is being abused by what could
be a great help to beekeepers inside and all over the world it makes you
think that the inmates of the asylum are running it. There is a real chance
that they could do real work here too which is unfortunate to all who work
with bees every were. The new Secretary of Agriculture should do something
about moving out the old and replacing them with more accommodating
entomologists who really want to work in Apiculture,
Respectfully Submitted
Harvey Gussow
a.k.a. KA7TYN