Small Cell Hive

[Omie]

Your frame appears to be about a foot long! HA!

Yes, but look- my regressed bees are even smaller than varroa mites...so a varroa mite cannot possibly even FIT into one of my small cells!




(my apologies to Oldtimer for pulling your leg here and swiping your photo, which I am happy to have deleted if deemed inappropriate)


.

[Oldtimer]

Hmm.. well actually i didn't quite catch what was happening until i went back & had a close look. Ha Ha!

And Wired For Stereo, I looked at you pics. Best I can read your measurer, looks like your cells are smaller than mine. Can my stuff be called small cell and would it even work?

I'm asking any small celler type people, not just Wired For Stereo.

[Michael Bush]

I've decided if you breed the bees big enough the mites are too small to matter...

http://s3.amazonaws.com/readers/2009...urevespa_1.jpg

[Solomon Parker]

If 5mm is what you have, then 5mm is what you use. It's smaller than usual. But if it was advertised and sold as 4.9mm, perhaps you should have a word with the seller about truth in advertising.

[Barry]

But according to the measurements in this pic, it is 5.0 mm. Am I right?

You can't say that the foundation isn't 4.9 just because the bees drew it out 5.0. Measure the foundation to verify the cell base size. If 4.9, just means your bees still aren't wanting/able to draw it smaller.

OK, here are some images I have on file. I have more photos that I'll have to scan.



This is comb from my 4.9 wax foundation. Not real clear, but you can still see it measures 49mm in ten cells.



When 4.9 plastic first came out from Dadant, I tried some but the bees tended to do their own thing. I tried mixing it in with wax and a super of just plastic. Never did get good results. The reverse side of this frame was drawn out pretty good, but it measured 5.1 or 5.2.



This was another member of BioBee who had better success with plastic 4.9.

[Barry]

Just for comparison, I add these combs that were sent to me from a BioBee member that lived near St. Louis. These came out of a bee tree. I still have this comb.







Four separate combs in all, roughly 8"x8" in size. They were obviously from the broodnest. They were also not first year comb. This was an establish hive due to the thickness of the cell walls in the top two combs. The bottom comb could have been brood/honey due to the thin cell walls.

[Solomon Parker]

I never had any luck with the Dadant plastic either. It doesn't really have any cell wall bases.

[Oldtimer]

Thanks for the pics that helps, what I have is not what you guys have.

I've got a stack of the foundation so have measured that, it's the same, 5.0 mm.

So I guess the question is, according to small cell theory, will it work?

IE, the reason I've done this whole thing is not because I want to convert my whole outfit to it. It's an experiment to test small cell, and if what I have is not small cell, then there's no point.

So can anyone chip in if it's worth me continuing with this foundation?

[BeeCurious]

How much is the shipping for a box of 4.9 to get to your place?

I'll donate a buck or two towards your project via PayPal...

Or better yet, have the guy who sold you the 5.0 reimburse you. If you bite the bullet, you could buy some chem-free 4.9

Seriously, I'll toss a couple of bucks in...

Joe

[Solomon Parker]

In more natural or treatment free beekeeping, there are few one to one relationships. There's no 'if you do exactly this, then exactly this will happen'. Furthermore, it's not only cell size that defines what we do. It's also localized genetics and clean wax and effective management among others.

I believe you read Dee Lusby's POV pages or at least some of them. Her research demonstrates that natural cell size varies by location. I'd love to tell you something to do and guarantee that you will be successful. But I can't do that in good conscience.

It's not magic my friend. 4.9 is not a magic number.

[Oldtimer]

OK well I'll scrap the experiment and just run the one hive and see what happens to it.

I cannot use info from Dee because she is using different bees. From what I read, other people with using small cell, with normal bees, are getting very mixed results, some succeeding, some failing. And on top of that most people will defend their own particular method and only tell you what they want you to hear. I was hoping to take some of the "magic" away, and get to the reality.

Oh and thanks for the offer BeeCurious. However the cost of a few bits of foundation is not so much an issue as that this is the only small cell foundation available in my country. But Cheers anyway.

Beeswax imports to my country are illegal. I could import plastic, but I won't.

[Barry]

By all means continue with the 5.0. It's not that exact of a formula. Lusby's had their whole outfit on 5.0. They felt going to 4.9 eliminated some of the secondary issues they were seeing. 5.0 might be just right for your geographical area. See if you can get some 4.9 foundation eventually to work in. Where do you fall on the map?

http://www.beesource.com/point-of-vi...e/climate-map/

Hmmm, looks like you're barely on the map! Green indicates 4.8 to 5.0, so your on the top side of sizing.

[Solomon Parker]

10 pages and you want to scrap it? This is like the best thing we got going!

[Oldtimer]

Where on the map? That little blob just bottom right of Australia.

Little nuclear free country that many maps, (like this one), don't even show properly.

Natural cell size here is 5.3 mm. That's not just because of geography, but also the 3 main species that make up our bees are the ones that build larger cells. I've measured up a lot of wild comb and it's very rare to get anything smaller. This 5.00mm comb I've got is certainly smaller than anything i've seen.

The thing is, reasons for the supposed effectiveness of small cell have been hypothesised, but none proved using proper scientific method, and eliminating any other factors. The evidence for it working is experiential, for some. So, is it the size of the cell, or the relationship between the size of the cell, and what would have been the size of the cell had the bees been allowed to draw natural comb.

In other words, bees where I am want to go 5.3. So to them, 5.00 might be "smaller", than 4.9 would be to bees in an area where bees would want to go 4.9 anyway. But I don't know that, so it's frustrating.

Just another thing to consider.

But why I'm not putting much more resources into this experiment is the result will not be conclusive. Because whatever happens, it's not the "magic" 4.9 mm cell so in the minds of some that will negate any findings.

However I'll run the hive and if anything interesting comes of it in the next 2 or 3 years I'll dig up this thread and post to it.

[Barry]

I personally think trying to prove conclusively something like this is impossible. All you need to do is prove it to yourself. Proving something is for scientists. I'm interested in keeping bees treatment-free.

[BeeCurious]

10 pages and you want to scrap it? This is like the best thing we got going!

Or three pages... depending on how you look at things.

[Oldtimer]

LoL.. :d

[Barry]

I've measured up a lot of wild comb and it's very rare to get anything smaller.

I assume you're talking strictly about core broodnest comb from well established feral hives?

[Oldtimer]

I personally think trying to prove conclusively something like this is impossible.

Well, getting a tad off topic. But I know some things with bees are just accepted as a bit of a mystery. But eventually, if you work hard enough and long enough, most mysterious can be unwound. That's what I've spent my life doing with bees and it can be done.
But varroas have only been where I am for just over 10 years. It's new. But one day they will no longer be an issue. I believe that all the factors around varroa will be seperated and fully understood, eventually.

[Oldtimer]

I assume you're talking strictly about core broodnest comb from well established feral hives?

Core broodnest, yes. Well established, harder to verify. Even the presence of "old" comb does not prove the hive did not die out and has recently been recolonised.

What I've done is try to see where the broodnest would have been when the first swarm arrived, where it's ended up at, and where the most regressed bees would have built combs after several generations. But all up, very hard pressed to find anything under 5.3.

Now there's a few top bar hives in my country, I've looked at TBH's that have been started from TBH's, that have been started from TBH's. They HAVE to be regressed. But cell size is 5.3.