> Even Allen Dick and his friend Joe Meijer from Alberta Canada came down
to see for themselves.

Dee says 'even' Allen Dick... and that's the right word: "even".

I think I'm known as a card-carrying sceptic, and I have given Dee a hard
time about her explanations and historical interpretations, but I try to
listen and observe objectively, regardless of my prejudices, and report
what I see -- and I did not see many varroa, or much evidence of mite
damage in Lusbys' outfit.

I had a chance to attend a meeting of local Tucson beekeepers while I was
there, and, as far as I can tell, these other beekeepers did not seem to
think that varroa had stopped being a serious problem for them.  I believe
that all of them that were not using small cells were treating for varroa,
but it is hard to tell what beekeepers are really doing, because they may
say one thing and actually be doing another.  That is not to say that
beekeepers would deliberately mislead, it is simply that the truth can be
complicated and hard to compress into a few sentences.

Several other beekeepers in the Tucson area were using smaller cell
foundation and some were playing a bit with 4.9, but as far as I could
tell, no one else -- other than Lee -- had gone all the way to 4.9.  Lee
swears by 4.9 and uses no varroa treatments.  He is a fair distance east of
Lusbys in New Mexico and in a different climate area, I believe.

I'm just going from casual memory from a social meeting here, and not was
taking notes.  I hope that , maybe, someone else from the Tucson area, like
Lee or Harvey, will confirm my impressions.

At any rate, I realize that the methods and many of the reports hardly look
scientific, but I think we all know that progress and learning took place
long before the discovery of the Scientific Method, and often continues (to
the exasperation of many Scientists) without any recourse to it. I still
take the position that what Lusbys are doing works in practice.  All we
need now is a satisfactory theory to explain it.

> Does research really want to know?

That is a good question.  If 4.9 works, and is an otherwise acceptable mite
control, it will certainly unwind a lot ongoing projects, from mite control
projects to many bee breeding programmes.  It may injure some reputations
as well.  I'm certainly watching this with interest, especially since there
seems to be a fair amount of inexplicable passion on the part of some of
those who claim to believe the idea is without merit.

One of the criticisms widely made is that this is a "one time / one place"
phenomenon, or dependant on some unique environmental factor local to
Lusbys, and that the results have not been replicated elsewhere.
Interestingly, there are now many people trying 4.9 cells on many varieties
of EHB around North America and around the world.  We hear of some
failures, and some successes.  It is hardly a scientific study, but any
appreciable success will give the idea increases credibility and help
define the parameters.

allen
http://www.internode.net/honeybee/diary/