This is in reply to Gene Nothaker's post of 12-05-2000, 03:39 PM
Gene wrote:
1. Is one breed better than another for down sizing?
Reply:
Try to find small caucasian breeders. Even the Russian bees being sold for varroa tolerance are a small black causacian strain. Purchasing from a small caucasian breeder your packages would be a whole lot cheaper than buying expensive patented Russian stock.
Further, most bee breeders in the Gulf
Port states are in an already naturally small cell size area by archival files, on the size of their bees, so even bees purchased from there, if on the right cell size, when shook down into packages, would be to the smaller tendancy, even if of the Italian type, as this type too, is originally from latitudes of naturally smaller broodcomb cell size.
The Caucasian bees originally from what was called Eur-Asia territory, just Northeast of
Turkey; and Italian bees from the Mediterranean area of the country of
Italy.
Gene wrote:
2. Can bees that have already been down sized be purchased?
Reply:
Yes. A few commercial breeders has already downsized down onto the 900 series foundation sold by Dadants back around 1991 or so.
A few have already even converted to 4.9 foundation along with us for the past four years or so and their bees are doing quite nicely, i.e. Bolling Bee in Greenville, Ala.
Gene then wrote:
My plan for each hive is as follows:
1. Start with 4 frames of 5.2 foundation
and 6 frames with 4.9 starter strips.
2. After these are filled, add second brood
filled with 4.9 foundation.
Question. Is it very likely that the bees will fill out the second box properly, or am I rushing it?
Reply:
First Gene, forget the 5.2 and go to 4.9 foundation and starter strips. 5.2
will only serve the purpose of being a crutch to keep the package bees sized
larger and if ordered early enough in the spring, the bees will naturally draw smaller foundation, if purchased from a breeder with bees already on smaller combs from the Gulf Port state area.
We have already had Amish hobbists do this, this past year, and it worked well for them up in the Ohio state area.
Then, when the combs are drawn and the brood has emerged for a 60 day period, reshake the starter stip combs down and let the bees redraw out new combs of 4.9 foundation from Dadant.
For advise and help on shaking down/culling badly drawnout combs, you can reference a lot of information from Barry Birkey's posts of retrogression of cell downsizing, he has already done with his bees this past year.
See:
http://www.beesource.com/eob/4dot9/index.htm
Lastly, Gene
Never be afraid to ask questions! That is how we all learn! Keep the thoughts and comments coming, then as you learn, and see it works, you can help others........
Very best regards,
Dee