To Michael Bush... part two....

[Chef Isaac]

Michael Bush:

I have some questions for you that I am not sure of the answers. I have read in your past posts about using smaller cells.

What is that and what does that mean? Smaller cells versus regualr foundation? What is the advantagous?

Sorry for all of the questions. I am just not sure what you mean when you mention that.

Also, being a new beekeeper, I havent started medicating at all except fumidil B in the sugar water. I was plannning on putting apistan strips in tomarrow but one of your posts said you do not medicate at all.

why? and how do you fight off bee deseases?

Some people say to medicate BEFORE something happenes like people who take aspren after a hard days work so they will not be sour the next morning or people who take flew shots to prevent flues.

what is your thought on that and can you take a little bit about how you take care of your bees (hive managment) all year around versus mediating in the fall and spring.

Thank you!

[Michael Bush]

>I have read in your past posts about using smaller cells. What is that and what does that mean? Smaller cells versus regular foundation? What is the advantages?

If you take natural bees that have never lived in a hive and let them build whatever size cells they want, worker brood cells run from as small as 4.6mm to 5.0mm. If you buy package bees and put them on standard foundation it is 5.4mm to 5.5mm and the bees will end up significantly larger when raised in the larger cells. The time from the egg being laid to capping for an artificially enlarged bee (because of being raised on artificially large cells because they are embossed that size) is a day longer than in a natural sized (4.9mm or thereabouts) cell. The post capping time (from capping to emergence) is also a day longer.

The number of Varroa infested the cell when the capping is a day later is twice as much as if it is a day sooner. The number of Varroa that succeed in reproducing when the cell is capped for another day is almost twice as much as if they emerge a day sooner.

There is also speculation that smaller bees would be healthier in general simply by virtue of the fact that they are their natural size instead of being artificially enlarged.

I have heard that there is some recent research that has shown the smaller bees are more efficient foragers. I have not been able to find this research but the mention of it was not from small cell advocates, but from a bee inspector.

The problem of GETTING to small cells is that artificially enlarged bees are not willing to, or are unable to build cells as small as 4.9mm because they are too big to do it. The first generation of 5.4mm bees allowed to build their own comb will build about 5.1mm cells. The next generation will build about 4.9mm and the next will build mostly between 4.6mm and 4.85mm with some as large as 5.0mm. For Drone they will build larger cells from 5.9mm to 6.5mm. And for honey storage they will build all sorts of sizes.

To measure cell size, use a metric ruler and measure across 10 cells and divide the result by 10.

I have a lot of bees on foundationless frames and mostly I let them build what they want. The bee inspector this spring commented how small they are. My son just went to the State fair and saw the observation hive there (we have one in the living room) and said the bees there look huge. Bees are not naturally the size most beekeepers have them.

In order to quickly regress them I have wax coated PermaComb to make a cell the equivalent of a 4.95mm cell (the cell walls are thicker so measuring across cells has to also take into account the difference in cell wall thickness).

>Sorry for all of the questions. I am just not sure what you mean when you mention that.

Well, that's what I mean when I mention that. The pioneer in this field is Dee Lusby. Her work is in the POV section.
http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/index.htm


>Also, being a new beekeeper, I havent started medicating at all except fumidil B in the sugar water. I was plannning on putting apistan strips in tomarrow but one of your posts said you do not medicate at all.

I do not medicate at all. In 30 years I have NEVER used fumidil. I have not used Terramycin for 28 years. I used Apistan for three years and it failed completely the last time I used it. I have never used menthol. Twice I've used grease patties. I used FGMO for a year and I used Oxalic acid one year. Currently I'm not using anything but we will see how the mites continue to do.

>why?

It always seemed wrong to me to put poisons in my hive.

>and how do you fight off bee deseases?

I don't. The bees do. Natural sized bees do very well, and I also am trying to get all feral survivors. I have quite a few now.

>Some people say to medicate BEFORE something happenes like people who take aspren after a hard days work so they will not be sour the next morning or people who take flew shots to prevent flues.

I also don't take aspirin more than once or twice in a year and I have never had a flu shot. Last time I had the flu was also about 30 years ago. Would you take antibiotics just in case you get sick?

>what is your thought on that and can you take a little bit about how you take care of your bees (hive managment) all year around versus mediating in the fall and spring.

I think medicating for things the bees don't have makes no sense and only results in resistance to the chemicals.

I think not monitoring the mites is foolish because they can get ahead of you and what you are depending on (whether it is Apistan, Checkmite, FMGO or small cell) can under certain circumstances fail because of things like resistance to the chemicals, hives crashing around you with your bees hauling loads of mites back etc. If you don't KNOW if what you are doing is working how can you make adjustments? If the mites were taking over, I'd probably do the Oxalic acid vapor. It is the most effective, reliable and cheap method I've seen to kill lots of mites in a short period of time.

Anyone who thinks they can just use Apistan and not monitor or Checkmite and not monitor will eventually lose their bees to resistant mites. I don't understand the people who are using chemicals that are KNOWN to fail sometimes and are condescending to people who are trying not to use such poisonous substances and are monitoring the mites and making adjustments as they need to.

[Chef Isaac]

So.... personally.... would you recomend that I do not use apistan and other drugs?

I am just trying to figuar out where to go with all of this. Do I or do I not use medication to treat? That is a hard question to answer.

[Michael Bush]

Personally this is what I would do (and, in fact, is pretty much what I am doing). I would use small cell foundation or NO foundation. If you want to use small cell, Dadant makes it and Dadant and Brushy Mt. sell it. Buy the 4.9mm wax.

If you want to use no foundation then cut the corners off of 1 bys to make a triangle 3/4" by 3/4" by 1" and nail these onto the bottom of the top bars. Also you can just put regular frames with no foundation between drawn combs and the bees will draw it nicely.

Measure your cell sizes in the center of the brood nest. You're trying to get to 4.9mm or smaller. The outside edges don't matter as much as the center.

Monitor the mites. If they get too bad make Topbar guy's oxalic acid vaporizer or buy an electric vaporizer now and have it on hand.

Meantime you can use FGMO fog on a regular basis if you want to try to keep the mites down, or you can just rely on the oxalic to knock them down if they get the upper hand.

A natural fall of 10 or 12 mites falling in 24 hours is not a problem. 40 to 50 in the spring is a bit scary. 40 to 50 in the fall is not that terrible.

Once the bees are regressed I would continure to monitor mites and I would not use any treatments unless they are warrented by the mite fall.

In the end you have to make your own choice.

[Busuke]

Mister Bush, I read your comments regarding small size cell foundation and read some more on the subject and got really interested. The idea of "not putting any poison in my hive" is quite apealing to me, and is very consistent to what I want to do.

However, one thing came clear from the publications I found and the small size cell sellers' descriptions - the trasnition from the "traditional" to the small size cells may need some period of adaptation, and is recommended to be done only by experienced beekeepers.

Well, I am not experienced in any way, but on the other hand I dont have to make any transition (cuz I dont have any bees yet). So, I thought maybe I can start 100% small sized. As far as I can see, the only way this is possible is to get a roaming swarm and let the bees build their own combs by putting them in a hive with small size foundations or no foundations at all, as you suggest in the post above.

Would you give us please some more advise on how to do this more properly. Which is more advisable - no foundation or small size foundation? If both - in what proportion. On the frames with no foundation, do you put wires on the frame? I read somewhere that bees build only drone cells on an empty frame. (I cant comprehend this - they start in "empty frams" in natural conditions, right?) How many frames in total? What time of year is best to start? Feeding? Anything else that might be essential for this beginning would be appreciated.

Thank you in advance.


[This message has been edited by Busuke (edited August 30, 2004).]

[Michael Bush]

>one thing came clear from the publications I found and the small size cell sellers' descriptions - the trasnition from the "traditional" to the small size cells may need some period of adaptation, and is recommended to be done only by experienced beekeepers.

It does take a transition of at least two regressions to get back to normal size.

>Well, I am not experienced in any way, but on the other hand I dont have to make any transition (cuz I dont have any bees yet).

It's much easier to start with 4.9mm foundation because you've already done one regression by doing that. Just make sure you start with the wax or foundationless. The large bees do not like small cell plastic at all. The regressed bees seem to do ok on it.

>So, I thought maybe I can start 100% small sized. As far as I can see, the only way this is possible is to get a roaming swarm and let the bees build their own combs by putting them in a hive with small size foundations or no foundations at all, as you suggest in the post above.

Some "romaing swarms" are from feral hives and are regressed (natural sized). Some are from other people's hives and are artificially enlarged ("normal" sized).

Either way you'll be better off to put them on 4.9mm foundation or self built comb.

>Would you give us please some more advise on how to do this more properly. Which is more advisable - no foundation or small size foundation?

This is a matter of opinion. Partly I do natural comb because I wanted to see what they would build. Now that they are building smaller cells, I continue because it's cheaper than the 4.9mm foundation and because it refutes arguments that 4.9mm is not natural cell size.

>If both - in what proportion. On the frames with no foundation, do you put wires on the frame?

I do not use wires at all, but I run all medium frames too. If I were running deeps and I were using wax foundation I would probably put some minimal wiring in.

>I read somewhere that bees build only drone cells on an empty frame.

Sometimes if they have nothing but foundation and have not had the opportunity to build drone cells for a while they will build a whole frame of drone comb. But when they have enough drone comb they will build whole frames of worker cells.

>(I cant comprehend this - they start in "empty frams" in natural conditions, right?)

Correct.

>How many frames in total?

I don't understand the question. I use no excluder and I let them build what they want where ever they want. But I try to keep small cell in the center of the brood nest. How many depends on the hive. Basically I want the majority of the brood nest to be small cells.

>What time of year is best to start?

The bees seem most willing to build small cells when they need brood comb. This happens when they have NO comb or in the spring when they need more room for brood. So spring seems to work the best to get them to draw smaller cells.

>Feeding?

Feeding usually helps with comb building if there is no heavy flow, as long as it doesn't set off robbing.

>Anything else that might be essential for this beginning would be appreciated.

Many discussions of this have been on the various forums. Try searching on "regression" or "how to regress".

Also look through the POV section from the main page.
http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/index.htm http://www.beesource.com/pov/simon/index.htm

[Michael Bush]

Also, how much expertise does it take to just use small cell foundation instead of standard foundation? How much expertise does it take to us NO foundation? A little woodworking skills or you just cut starter strips.

The only tricky part is measuring the cell size and culling out the ones that are too large until you have smaller cells. This doesn't take a lot of expertise, just a lot of elapsed time for the bees to get it all done.

[Hillbillynursery]

I started using the foundationless frames because I had free lumber and the tools but not the money. I was going to make some standard frames and use my culled wax from the plastic foundation mess I got from the starter kit and use blank wax I made by pouring melted wax onto a wet board. Then I read MBs post about foundationless frames and TopBarGuy's threads about Top Bar Hives. So I came up with a way of making the point on the top bar of the frame. I have had mixed results with these as to getting small cell. One hive drew them perfect. Another hive drew them nice but the ends curved onto the next frame, which after I cut the miss drawn part off and mixed the frames with the foundationed one was fixed. About the cell size, I had one frame with no cell under 5.6 and some as large as 10mm. The bees had it full of capped honey and ever cell was extremely large. This same hive in the middle of the brood nest drew from top being 5.6(just a couple of rows) to 4.6 at the bottom. Natural cell has the full range of cells. 5.5 is thought to be the largest size used for workers. But so far everything I have measured workers have been in 5.4 and down. I even found some drones in the 5.4(this may have been some larger cells of the 10 measured with smaller cells making up the difference on the average).
You do not need to be experienced with bees to use foundationless frames, BUT it is nice to have the drawn frames to guide the bees in making these combs straight. Put another way use foundation with your package of bees. Then when you need to add the second box place an empty frame, frame with just a starter strip, or a foundationless frame on the outsides of the box using the 2 frames you removed on each side of a empty(ect) frame in the middle of the second box. Most bees seem to chimney(go straight up before filling the bootm box fully)first anyway. One thing we(those of us who use empty type frames) is that these frames get drawn faster than foundation. As the colony grows keep inserting these frames between 2 that are drawn. Once you have the brood boxes drawn(normally 2 if using deeps or 3 if using mediums) start culling the ones with the most drone cell or over sized honey cells and use these to start your supers being drawn. Once you have the drone and honey cells down to an exectable limit start culling large worker cell sizes. I switched a hive over from being standard plastic foundation to foundationless frames this year. About 60% of the worker cells are considered small cell(5.0mm or less). I started bee keeping last year and by no means an experienced beekeeper. I pulled about 20 drawn frames out of the one I switch over this year over the 30 frames of foundationed frames. I tell you this so you do not freak over how many frames need to be culled during the process. I have 4 more that only made it about 1/2 way of the transition. It takes time and effort but if you are poor like me you can do it without buying the Small cell foundation and throwing it in the melter when it is not drawn properly. I was not out a penny by letting the bees draw their own comb and culling the ones that did not make the grade. I was actually ahead as these produced extra wax. If you need more info email me Hillbillynursery(at)hotmail.com.

[OldScout]

MB, the article about the Lusbys is about 4 or 5 years old. How are they doing now? Any long term obsevations with going with the small cells?

[Michael Bush]

Dee is the moderator on the yahoo organicbeekeeping forum. She's been doing small cell now for 9 years, I believe. She and Ed are at nearly 1000 hives and still making a living doing nothing but beekeeping. She is still adamant about using no chemicals at all INCLUDING FGMO, essential oils and a lot of things most folks would consider organic.

I think the fact that they are still making a living at beekeeping without any chemicals whatsoever and 9 years on the small cell is pretty good evidence that something about what they are doing is working.

[swarm_trapper]

we jsut checked hives today we got ten hives that are on large cell foundation and 9 that are trying to get on 4.9 its a lot of work. we started by catching swarms in the spring they were large cell bees. we put them on small cell foundation we figured that it would be a piece of cake to get them drawing out 4.9 because with in a week they drew out ten frames of 5.1-5.0 boy were we wrong this summer we kept switch ing out frames and puting foundation in its place but they drew it out the same way every time with lots of drone. finaly today they are drawing out nice 4.9 yea!! there are no mites no sing of mites (we did not test but scrached open lots of drone brood) our oher large cell hives are having mayn more mite problems so next year we will shak down all the hives early in the spring they should then draw out nice stuff (hoppfully) and we will split off of them. some guys say that it wont work but they never tried it and maybe i wont work for them but it works for us
regards Nick
P.S. we could not have goten there without the organic list.

[TwT]

Michael, what is the smallest size pierco foundation , if there are different sizes, and where do you get your permacomb from??

[BULLSEYE BILL]

I'm no MB but I did stay in a Holiday Inn.

PERMACOMB SYSTEMS
John Seets, National/International Distributor
2203 Belleview Rd.
Catonsville, MD 21228
Ph: 410-471-4335
E-mail: john.seets@ngc.com

[Michael Bush]

>Michael, what is the smallest size pierco foundation , if there are different sizes, and where do you get your permacomb from??

John Seets is where to get the PermaComb.

Pierco deep frames 5.25mm
Pierco med frames 5.35mm
Pierco foundation 5.25mm

None is small enough to make a significant difference with the mites.

But these are smaller. Both allowing for the thicker walls:

PermaComb 5.1mm
Waxed dipped PermaComb 4.95mm