Keith Malone chimed in on the small cell size discussion with the
following comment:

>One will never eliminate varroa from a colony, the trick is to find
>a way to help the bee deal with varroa without damaging the bees
>or their environment. The Primorsky Russian bees did this naturally
>long ago by natural selection, eliminating the weak genetics by
>attrition of colonies that were highly susceptible to varroa. The
>colonies that had a natural high resistance to varroa were the
>only colonies left to breed with. Dealing with varroa will cost one
>way or the other, dealing with it in a natural way will last
>longer and will harm the bees less.

    The honey bees we studied on Santa Cruz Island were quite small.
Rob Page accompanied Robbin Thorp and me on one of our trips and
often remarked about the small size of the island bees.  I measured
the cells and obtained a 5.0 mm distance.  Nevertheless, all the
island bees now well may have succumbed to the varroa mite.

    By contrast, feral bees here in Santa Barbara that we monitor
continue to do quite well with no treatment of any kind, in line with
Keith's comment.  Earlier I covered that point, now available as the
following web site item:

http://www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/abjsep1999.htm

    I measured cell sizes for one such feral colony and obtained 5.3
mm, larger than the cell sizes found on the island combs.

    It would appear that small cell size would not explain the
difference in colony survival between island and mainland.

                                                        Adrian


--
Adrian M. Wenner                (805) 963-8508 (home office phone)
967 Garcia Road                 [log in to unmask]
Santa Barbara, CA  93103        www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/index.htm

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