Jim,

To your list, I would like to add a few more variables.

1. A small space makes small bees:  last year I retrieved a feral colony
from someone’s backyard, living in an abandon square box, the size of 17”
computer monitor.  The box was made of composite-pressed-wood material,
and it was falling apart.  I found that the bees built diagonal combs to
maximize the given tight space: adaptable, they utilized the space as best
as they could, though.  What astonished me was their size: I could tell
they were visibly smaller than my Italians.  In fact, a friend of mine
thought they could be German bees.  To my untrained eye, I could tell
their size was a direct result of living in such confined quarters: they
regressed themselves.  Given such findings and variables, it appears not
that easy to measure any “normal” comb size among feral bee combs.

2. How many years of being feral will make them build smaller cells?  Most
feral bees, indeed, do seem to live in smaller-size cells.  [Here, feral
bees, this is my working definitnon, are bees living in the wild in the
absence of nearby apiary]  But could this be a result of recycling old
combs over and over, thus thickening the wall with living debris?  And
then once having used to live in such a reduced cell, are they maintaining
that size since they had been born into one?  I just do not know.  At what
stage of being feral, I am curious, too, do they regress?  In the first
year, in the second, or the third?  (Another dissertation topic here)  And
beyond at what point do they build small-cells exclusively?

3. What about those feral bees that did not seem to have regressed at all
for whatever the reason?  Why are they still living?  Disinterested in the
topic, I have yet to record any cell-size so far, while collecting feral
bees; however, I have seen feral bees that were as big, if not bigger, as
my Carniolans, especially drones.  They should have perished a long time
ago.  “Nothing that is so is so,” to quote Bill Shakespeare.

4. As Adrian pointed out a while back, could it be that the mites are
getting weaker, having gone through the phases: the initial devastation of
the host, a stasis of equilibrium between the two, the host and
pestilence, and the final recovery of the host, something like Hegelian
Dialectics?  Assuming such postulation, one can argue almost anything, not
knowing the intricate variables—-such as last year, I wore red underwear
exclusively whenever I worked my bees, and Voi la, none of my bees got
killed!

Someone said, “The last doctor that treats the sick is always the best
doctor” since by then the patient has recovered on his/her own.


Yoon

Shawnee, OK

First cut-comb super on today.

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