> Poor nutrition in my opinion will alter DNA just as proper nutrition can
> repair DNA.

Opinons are not facts.  Facts are what we like best here on BEE-L, but we do
find opinions interesting.  Nonetheless, this opinion seems to be at odds
with the facts, at least if we are talking about the DNA involved in
heredity.  Others can -- and will -- comment, I am fairly sure.

> So yes it can be temporary but only by God given nutrition and not man
> made artificial feeds.

This sounds like dogma, not science, and the fact that the above collection
of words can be formed into a sentence does not mean they should be, or that
such an arrangement make any sense to rational people.

FWIW -- Years ago, when I was much younger and grappling with the meaning of
life and everything (before I reached 42) a friend who was lecturing in
philosophy at a university (while also hosting a late-night radio
underground music show) expalined to me that just because important-sounding
words can be made into sentences that have correct syntax -- and sound OK --
we should not assume that they necessarily have real meaning.  He used the
question, "Is the mountain happy?", as an example of the puzzling nonsense
that can be formed.  Since then, my life has been much better, and I no
longer torture myself trying to find meaning in sentence-like collections of
unrelated words.

>> That assumes that that, in the "former condition", bees were on a
>> "smaller worker comb size".  For most of history, and in many places,
>> they were on natural comb.  To truly regress thus, we should not use
>> foundation, I should think.  Or was there a golden age of beekeeping
>> during the few years that EHB were kept on smaller foundations that is
>> our ideal state?

> This needs another thread or subject line. Still needs shake downs until
> settled. Foundation used in the right season can help bring the size down
> faster and then foundationless will enable settling easier.

Okay, whoa!  "Shake downs", "settled", "right season", "foundationless will
enable settling easier"???  I don't get any of this.  Moreover, even if it
does, it does not seem to answer the question asked.

>> If there were no natural bees in that region, and all honey bees are
>> imports, how to we then regress?  To nothing?  No bees?

> Funny!! I think you are being facetious.

Not at all.  I'm trying to understand where you are going, or at least where
you think you are going.

> Perhaps PETA would agree with you but you know this is not the point of
> the conversation.

How did PETA come into this?  And why not just answer the straightforward
question?

> We are talking setting the bees on a more healthy course and putting them
> on a comb size they may have been on before being altered bigger. Why turn
> this into a Merry-Go-Round where nothing is real.

That's what I am asking you.  "Real" for me means, to a large extent,
understandable and proveable, not vague, elusive and undefined.

> Joe Waggle once a while ago on a post on another list put it real about
> exactly what you are up to in this line of questioning, maybe he can
> remember how he put it? If this is the line of questioning that will
> continue I will have to decline answering anymore of this kind of
> nonsense.

That is your right.  You can fold if you don't have a good hand, or have
reasons not to play it.  Nonetheless, these are simple, reasonable questions
and, as a point of fact -- as far as I can tell -- you have not succeeded in
answering *anything* so far, with anything except generalities, evasions and
personal comments, even to the extent that you may have attempted to do so.
Therefore, most readers are likely to conclude that you are holding a pair
of threes -- at best.

>> Given a choice bees generally prefer to build *beside* the foundation,
>> not on it, and a variiety of sizes and shapes, all on the same comb.

> Yes, is this a secret? Of course bees can build what they prefer this is
> what I was stating.

Okay, maybe I missed it.  How, exactly, do they do this when forced onto
small cell comb?

>> Okay, so how does more breeding, more manipulating, more transporting,
>> and providing different man-made hives with restrictive foundation come
>> into this?

> Bees were being kept on Langstroth equipment before man decided to alter
> the bees size.

What does this mean?  I was asking if this short period was a golden age for
bees, where things were far more ideal, than the thousands of years when
they were free or kept in skeps or vessels containing their own natural
comb.

> Why do you have this mind set on all this equipment when as a beekeeper
> you do not need this stuff.

I have no idea what you are talking about.  In the archives, you can read my
posts, going back a decade or more, where I question the use of foundation
and the wisdom of using conventional hives.

> Get off and get on with it Allen. Just where does all this stuff come into
> it? What is your hang up? I do not have these addictions or mind sets but
> then again I am a young 49 years old and I have time to work.

Hmmm.  What is going on here? Just answer the questions or take the fifth.

 > This is not a writing contest, I think we are trying to talk bees by
writing. You yanked a big chain just like you planned I hope your satisfied.
Regression of bees is not as complicated as your trying to make it

Especially if nobody can clearly define it and explain it -- or even discuss
it without resorting to distracting evasions, generalities, and, eventually
assumptions and accusations about the listeners intentions -- all for asking
straightforward honest questions.

allen

Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.
            -- Eric Hoffer

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