From: "deelusbybeekeeper" <deelusbybeekeeper@excelonline.com>
Date: Sat, 12 May 2001 13:49:19 -0700
To: <BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: From 5.5 to 4.8 in Norway

Hi to all on Biological Beekeeping;

Erik wrote:

> Just want to inform you what i friend in Norway reported yesterday. He has
> bought a mill from Tom industries and is milling 4.8.

Reply:

Question: It would be my understanding then he bought a 4.9mm mill and is
working with warm wax sheets to get shrinkage then to arrive at 4.8mm size?
yes/no?

> He has given a couple
> of hundreds of colonies one foundation to check which will draw the best.
> He has Elgon bees (African Monticola and Buckfast in combination),
> Buckfast, Carniolan and Norwegian mongrels(probably dark Mellifera crossed
> with Carniolan). The only two that managde to draw nice 4.8 directly from
> 5.5 was two Norwegian mongrels. Not any of the ones with African heritage!

Reply:

I take it the Norwegian mongrels are more a truer feral bee of Norway and
thus more acclimitized to the climate? Also that the Jump from 5.5 like with
5.4 here is too great a distance for one regression for most colonies due to
subcaste breakout delineation. Figure only going down .2-.3mm each
regression jump.

> Also he bought a lot of 5.10, 5.10, 5.10 foundation (yes the commercial wax
> producer managed to do it perfectly regular) from the wax producer in
> Sweden that as the first step now is selling ONLY 5.1 foundation. My
> Norwegian friend also put on boxes with 5.1 on all kind of bees to see what
> they would do with it. ALL of them, regardeless of heritage made nice combs
> of them. You could see one odd cell which was not good. That means that
> probably many cells were actually 5.2 instead of 5.1 (but bottom were
> certainly 5.1). So all colonies managed to go directly from 5.5 to 5.1 you
> could say. That's good news.

Reply:

Yes, this would seem to say the .2-.3mm jump down parameters are there for
limitations as to how far regresson can go each step. 5.5 minus .3 equal
5.2. This is good to hear, as even in the USA there is 5.2 foundation on the
market for those needing it, and many already have it in their colonies.

So many this year some wishing to start downsizing, might just want to sort
frames and put all big combs in honey supers and all small/smallest down
into broodnest area, to make jump easier to 4.9mm the following year, and if
milling themselves and can get into the 4.8mm range, better yet.

But stay with a limit of between 4.8mm and 4.9mm to stabalize the bees
until they sort themselves out regionally to natural spectrum of small ,
medium, large for natural matings, and to avoid extracting problems.

> Next season all these colonies will get 4.8 foundation.

Reply:

Yes, Erik, your friend is right on, and should have no problem next year and
in fact will be in a great position to help others regress to save their
bees also.

Dee