Deknow:
> i'd be curios to know what size foundation is being used in brazil...especially in these specific areas.

REPLY:

> In Brazil, beehives normally contain natural-sized (self-made) combs with relatively small cells or combs with larger, European-sized cells drawn from wax foundation. Many have combs with both types of cells. These comb cell size differences could affect the development of varroa populations; however, this possibility has been little studied. (1)

* * *

> As old dark brood combs normally have the smallest-size cells, and mite infestations in worker brood increase with comb cell size, we decided to compare mite infestation levels in worker brood reared in old comb with reduced cell size versus that found in new (natural- sized) comb recently built by the bees (without comb foundation).

> We had expected that there would be fewer V. destructor in the smaller brood cells in the old combs than in the relatively larger brood cells in the new combs, as previous experiments had indicated a positive correlation between cell size and infestation rate. Indeed, the tendency towards higher infestation in wider cells was maintained for each type of comb. Drone brood, which is reared in large brood cells, is also considerably more infested by V. destructor than is worker brood. Cell size at least partly explains this attraction, as drone brood reared in drone cells is significantly more infested than brood reared in worker-size cells in the same colony.

> However the cells in the old combs were much more infested than those in the new (naturally built) combs, even though the former were significantly smaller. The old comb cells were four to over five times as infested as the new brood comb cells, when the same 1/10 mm cell width intervals were compared. It is clear that these mites strongly preferred old worker brood comb cells to new worker brood cells. However, the cues that the mites use to make this discrimination are unknown. (2)


(1) Giancarlo A. Piccirillo and D. De Jong (2003) The influence of
brood comb cell size on the reproductive behavior of the ectoparasitic
mite Varroa destructor in Africanized honey bee colonies

(2)  Giancarlo A. PICCIRILLO, David De JONG (2004) Old honey bee brood
combs are more infested by the mite Varroa destructor than are new
brood combs

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