From: "David Eyre" <admin@beeworks.com>
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 19:48:51 -0500
To: BiologicalBeekeeping@egroups.com
Subject: Re: cell size in supers

On 10 Jan 2001, at 22:29, deelusbybeekeeper wrote:

> maintain various mixtures in various beeyards around you, to keep inbreeding
> to a minimum. But this is not true in real nature.
>
> On a natural system, there is more variability in the smaller, to allow for
> transitioning between climatic areas.(UNCLEAR please clarify) Also the smaller castes
> easily pull apart and outbreed the larger oversized bees, by use of several
>factors at their disposal. (WHAT FACTORS)
<snip>
>In areas where there aren't many commercial beeyards to cast this sphere of
>breeding dominance the opposite takes place, and in reality the feral pulls apart
>and outbreeds artificially enlarged domestic bees.

I'm sorry but the writing here is so convoluted that it is unclear what
is being said. Please clarify.

I question this statement regarding feral bees as being
simplistic in it's view. Feral bees have little bearing on our bee
keeping and there are few commercial operations in my area. Any
swarms in our area are unlikely to last the first winter, so I fail to
see how they will naturally downsize to the smaller! Having spent a
great deal of time assaying the available bees in our area I note
nothing visibly smaller than kept bees of other bee keepers, so
would suggest it cannot be a natural trend.

When I first bought bees here in Canada they came from a
keeper who didn't care for his hives properly and one hive was on
very old comb. The bees were small and dark, and had the worst
case of Nosema the lab had ever seen, in fact without my chemical
interference I would have lost that hive the first year.

There has to be more to this 'size' than first meets the eye and
certainly too much generality in regard to results, what is working
in Arizona doesn't appear to work here in Canada.

Regards Dave E....