From: Erik Osterlund <honeybee@elgon.se>
Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2002 09:56:00 +0100
To: BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: Brood diseases

At 07.33 +1000 02-01-05, T & M Weatherhead wrote:

>This do not automatically prove that the smaller cell size was the reason
>why the varroa preferred Italian workers to the AHB workers. I would
>suggest that it also supports the juvenile hormone (JH) theory where the JH
>produced in the AHB is somehow not switching on the varroa trigger to
>reproduce whereas the JH in the Italian was and cell size had nothing to do
>with it. The other comment I would make is that if there were only two (2)
>colonies used then the data does not seem relative in statistical terms.

Trevor

Comment1: The small and the "big"cells were present in both colonies. And
the same result in both. Thus the result is to be related not the strain of
bees, but to the size of cells.

Comment 2: You are absolutely right concerning the size of the test. And
unfortunately that is too often the case.

Comment 3: Another comment that strikes me again and again, and also now
again is that all these tests being done concerning varroa are made to find
out the traits of the mites and not the traits of the bees. The most
important factor concerning cell size is not the impact on the mite or its
reproduction, but on the traits of the bee and bee colony. In first place
the enchanced cleansing behaviour reported by different beekeepers using
small cell size. If the bees are cleaning out or at certain intervalls
disturbing the reproduction of the mites by so called premature uncapping
of the brood, then how fast the mites reproduce is not of such importance
as seemed to be stressed by most scientists.

Regards

Erik