From: Erik Osterlund <honeybee@elgon.se>
Date: Wed, 16 May 2001 22:11:13 +0200
To: BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: From 5.5 to 4.8 in Norway

Hi Tony

It's in varroa land anyway because he has varroa. Exactly where he has his
bees I don't know.

Concerning small cell size, it's not in first place a treatment method,
even if it would be possible to look at that way too, at least in Arizona,
probably in other places too. In first place it's the natural way of the
bees. That's what they want if they would be able to decide. The Norwegian
mongrels that have had their way themselves for quite some generations I
assume tell us they want smaller than more domesticated bees. So then why
do they want that? Well, in nature, there are only two selection criteria,
survival and reproductions, so it can't be far from the truth to assume the
answer lies in that range in some way. Also, you get a lot bigger
evaporation area on a frame when the bees work to get down to the right
water content. I know you've had problems with that in Norway, so that
would be a good argument too, and stronger frames due to more cell walls.
Also more cells per frame. In a Norwegian Standard box (ten frames) it
makes 18,000 additional frames, almost one week egg laying, when going from
5.6 to 4.9 mm. With smaller cells you get a bigger pollen hoarding impuls,
which at least some years is important in late summer flows to help bees
get good winter bees and high immune system helping them survive secondary
infections caused by the mites (Gro Amdam in your journal Birøkteren 5-01).
Hope we all get a good summer this season.

Hope that helps

Erik