>Would any small cell beekeepers out there be willing to take on some queens from hives that were about to collapse from varroa and see what they do in a small cell hive?

Sure. I'll put them in one of my outyard splits.

My experience was that when using large cell and no treatments I lost 100% of my hives to Varroa 100% of the time (I tried it three times). My experience was that when using large cell and Apistan I lost 100% of the hives to Varroa after three years. The evidence this was from Varroa would be the hundred thousand or so dead Varroa mites on the bottom board.

My experience using small cell with commercial stock and no treatments is that I've lost 0% to Varroa as evidenced by the only losses having not more than single digits amounts of Varroa on the bottom board.

My experience using natural cell with commercial stock and no treatments is that I've lost 0% to Varroa as evidenced by the only losses having not more than single digits amounts of Varroa on the bottom board.

My experience using small cell with feral survivor stock with no treatments is that I've lost 0% to Varroa and even less to starvation wintering etc.

I have losses, as everyone does. But there are no significant number of Varroa remaining as evidence of any Varroa issues. I have trouble finding any at all.

I'm convinced both survivor stock and small cell play a part in healthy colonies, but the small cell was enough for the Varroa issue.

My Varroa counts in the spring for the last five years, taken and certified by the State of Nebraska Department of Agriculture:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beescerts.htm

So far after going through over a hundred hives and a hundred mating nucs several times and uncapping drones, I've seen ONE Varroa mite this year.

That's my observations.

 

>My Varroa counts in the spring for the last five years, taken and certified by the State of Nebraska Department of Agriculture:

I have seen these results before Michael, in fact after studying these I made an informed decision to go the small cell route.

But you know, there are those who would say that this was not a 'scientific' test of mite counts, and also what about the hundred or so colonies that you have compared to the millions out there that show otherwise. And maybe it's just your good luck, and maybe its your other good management practices, and maybe this and maybe that. And maybe I will choose to treat mine (which I won't) at a cost of around $100.00 per year and then they won't die for 3 whole years.

 

What would useing the queen do to prove the theory?? seems to me that would be the same test that have already been done??
(maybe I am misunderstanding)

What about takeing a whole hive with A moderate (soon to problimatic varro population and swithing them to small or natural cell fondatins and see if they recover???

Just a wandering thought:lookout:

 

What about takeing a whole hive with A moderate (soon to problimatic varro population and swithing them to small or natural cell fondatins and see if they recover???

Just a wandering thought:lookout:

Well, I have one of those. Just checked all my small cell (regressed) by using clean oil for 2 days (actually from evening of 1st day to morning of 3rd day). In my 4 regressed colonies, no mites; although in one of these colonies my son did previously spot a worker with a mite, which I killed. I guess I saved this colony from a major mite infestation.

In my only standard cell colony (which is now regressed but has had no regressed brood hatched yet) there were nine mites which I found under the same circumstances (only minutes differences in examinations). The queen in this colony is a raised MHQ from one of my small cell colonies. I am not treating and will let you know how this progresses.

 

How about a dead hive and live hive count and a mite count on the bottom board of the dead ones. Seems much easier and much more applicable to the issue.

"It's not about mite counts, it's about survival." -- Dann Purvis

 

I thought about that, but I think(respectfully) it misses the point of proof.

we have established that runawaymites kill hives.... thats a given... what we (I belive) are still in a quandry about is what is keeping them in check? is it in fact the small cell, or so other behaivior that goes with small cell?? to my feeble mind the only way to pocket the naysayers is take one that is already on the downslide and see if it stablizes or reverts.......

Again, just my mind speculating on the argument others would throw out.

 

Drur, I am like you, what is a high count?? my point was not that I need proof, but what would pacify the naysayers??

I had read your note and think your right on target to quelch the arguments....

From what I read the hive was getting mites (enought that 9 fell off) and were on natrual cell, and now you switched them to small cell???

Sound perfect to me... if the mite count goes down in the next 3 brood cycles instead of up, then doesn't that prove teh cell size was the only varible??

The only other detail was the loss of brood cycle (and mite cycle) in the switch... but since you use the same adults the interuption of the mite cycle should only be one larva peroid, and should be back to pre move levels after one brood cycle..

Least thats the way I see it...

Great plan I think:scratch:

 

I thought J Berry's study and the two others she cited in this months Bee Culture article does not bode well for the small cell movement. In all three studies the mite to be ratio was actually higher with the 4.9 bees and they had smaller overall brood areas. Check out the table on the bottom of page 50.

In my estimation beekeeper's efforts would be better spent identifying and developing hardy bees that have VSH and SMR traits that produce and pollinate well.

 

I thought J Berry's study and the two others she cited in this months Bee Culture article does not bode well for the small cell movement. In all three studies the mite to be ratio was actually higher with the 4.9 bees and they had smaller overall brood areas. Check out the table on the bottom of page 50.

As far as I can remember, J Berry's study showed a significant higher population with a bigger brood area for the small cell colonies. I would be glad to be corrected if I'm wrong.

 

IMO, the small cell debate has largely fallen into two camps: (1) small cell supporters and (2) people who think that it's primarily a matter of small cell beekeepers have managed to breed bees that, for whatever reason(s), drastically reduce the mite population in the hives.

There is at least one more option. (3)Those who suspect that the small cell and traditional cell beekeepers who maintain untreated, successful apiaries have something in common and it isn’t cell size.

Which brings up my first question: Does anybody know whether the counts of bees in both the small cell and large cell hives in her studies were relatively low, high or somewhere in the middle

I don’t recall any population ‘counts’ or estimates on those hives. I can tell you that they were, for the most part, healthy vigorous hives….both sc and lc.

My second question is whether anybody has done other things to see if there is a relationship between cell size and mite counts or genetics and mite counts?

I do know that Africanized bees are smaller and have smaller cells and seem to coexist with varroa. I do believe that Dee Lusby has significant African genes in her apiaries. But, that doesn’t explain the success of others who are beyond the Africanized areas.

"It's not about mite counts, it's about survival." -- Dann Purvis

I’ve always held Dann in high regard….a maverick with principles. But I’m pretty sure he is/was an lc guy.

 

I do know that Africanized bees are smaller and have smaller cells and seem to coexist with varroa. I do believe that Dee Lusby has significant African genes in her apiaries. But, that doesn’t explain the success of others who are beyond the Africanized areas.

WRT africanized bees, this may be an interest reading: http://www.funpecrp.com.br/gmr/year2003/vol1-2/gmr0057_full_text.htm

My bees are AHB (all of them), and sometimes I have problems with Varrroa (mostly when it gets colder than usual, which means much warmer than the winters you all are used to). I stopped using foundation in the broodnest for three years now, and, in spite of this past winter being "cold" and rainy, Varroa didn't turn to be an issue.

 

>But I’m pretty sure he is/was an lc guy.

Yes, he was. That does not diminish the reality of the statement that mite counts are not the point.

 

That does not diminish the reality of the statement that mite counts are not the point.

You and I agree on this. As I said, I hold Dann in high regard. In his early selection process he intentionally introduced all variety of pestilence into his yards. The 'natural selection' pressures were far beyond anything that would likely occur in an unforced setting.

 

The BC article states that BOTH the SC and LC drops were well below threashold (as defined by Delaplane) for the area (sp?).

>There is at least one more option. (3)Those who suspect that the small cell and traditional cell beekeepers who maintain untreated, successful apiaries have something in common and it isn’t cell size . . .
There are many, many, many beekeepers and bee-havers (I know several personally) that have never heard of SC. And they too, have bees that "survive". Many of these "many" swear they do not treat with anything (there "word" is just as good as any for me ). Some say they did "years ago", but stopped. I know a local fella that says he has NEVER treated for Varroa. He "thinks" he may have "some", but in his words, "they dont hurt anything".

 

The table on pg 50 of this months BC clearly shows more brood area and less mites for the "conventional cell".


After the last 10 years of working on identifying mite tolerant bees on standard foundations the conclusion I personally have come to is that it is the genetics that matter the most. The bottom line is that tolerant bees need to have the genes for things like VSH, SMR, allogrooming and others. Without the proper genetics cell size is a moot point in my locations.

 

the conclusion I personally have come to is that it is the genetics that matter the most.

I've concluded just the opposite. The one factor that is constant in my hives is the comb. I just put bees purchased from a "conventional" beekeeper on my combs a little over a year ago and I'm not seeing anything different than the last batch of bees I had. Go figure.

 

>it is the genetics that matter the most . . .
And management techniques, like splitting and thus creating a "broodless period" at the right time (to control Varroa). Good beekeeping skills in general are a "must".

 

I am not sure what you mean by anything different, is that good or bad?

Side by side, the differences between selected tolerant lines and and unselected lines, like perhaps Australians or run of the mill Italians, are very noticeable to me, especially in terms of might loads in August and overwintering success without acaricides.

 

Sorry. I use only SC comb. So it's a good thing.

 

'Nuff said

 

Since the question seems to come up a lot, I thought I would clarify a bit.

Rationalization Theories on Small Cell Success

This isn't to talk about my theories of why small cell works or others who are doing it, but the theories of those who want to explain away the success of small cell beekeepers with theories that are more in line with their model of the world. There seem to be many theories from those who are not doing small cell and who want to explain the success of small cell beekeepers in some other frame of reference that makes sense to them. I will address a few of these here.

AHB. One explanation, which is consistent with other beliefs held by these individuals is that small cell beekeepers must have Africanized Honey Bees. Since they believe that AHB build smaller cells and EHB do not, in their model of the world, that explains both the size of the cells, and the success with Varroa as well as early emergence and other issues to do with Varroa. The problem with this theory is that many of us are keeping bees in Northern climates, where we are told AHB can't survive, are selling them to others, who comment on how gentle our bees are, have them regularly inspected, without any complaints of aggressiveness or suspicions of AHB from inspectors, and indeed most of us are collecting local survivor stock when we can, which supposedly could not survive in the North if it was AHB. And I have had samples tested at the request of someone doing a study on bee genetics which says they are not. The fact is we are not raising AHB and don't want to. Whether or not Dee Lusby, or others in AHB areas end up with some AHB genes, is a different discussion, but it's irrelevant to the fact that most of us do not live in AHB areas and are not raising AHB and are not interested in raising AHB.

Survivor stock. While it's true that many small cell and natural cell beekeepers try to breed from survivors, this is simply the logical thing to do. You raise bees that can survive where you are. Many people are doing that even if they are not doing small cell and even if it's not for Varroa issues, but just wintering issues. Typically the people using this argument quote the losses that the Lusby's had while regressing as evidence that they just bred stock that could survive the Varroa. This seems plausible if the Lusbys were the only example, but I had no large losses while regressing and started with commercial stock and when I did the same thing on large cell, I lost all of them to Varroa several times over. Starting again with new commercial stock on small cell I have lost none to Varroa. This is consistent with other people's experience that I know of as well. Considering how many people are working so diligently to try to breed resistant stock, I think it's beyond believability that so many of us small cell beekeepers just blundered into Varroa resistant stock with so little effort. If these people really believe genetics is the cause of our success then they should be begging us to sell them breeder queens. Since they are not, I do not think even they believe this. I certainly don't believe this, although I would love to. It would greatly increase the value of my queens. Since I regressed and since my Varroa issues went away, I then did start breeding from survivor stock I could find around, because I want bees acclimatized to my environment. I have better wintering when I do this. I did not see any change in Varroa issues when doing this as Varroa problems had already disappeared.

Blind faith. This isn't so much a reason being given that it works, as much as discounting that it does work and trying to find a reason people THINK it works. It seems that a lot of detractors of small cell think that the whole group of small cell beekeepers are fanatically religious followers of Dee Lusby. The implication is that we are deluded into believing it is working when it is not. Anyone who comes to one of the many organic meetings where Dee Lusby, Dean Stiglitz, Ramona Hershembiemer, Sam Comfort, I and others speak would see the absurdity of this. As would anyone who participates in the organic beekeepers Yahoo group. We often have different observations and often disagree, as any honest beekeepers do. If we all spouted some standard party line, then this might be a legitimate concern, but while we agree on the basic concepts, we often disagree on details and we have all had different experiences probably caused our locations and our climate as well as just chance. While I have great respect for all of the above listed speakers and particularly for Dee, as she and her late husband Ed pioneered this work, I have never been in total agreement with her or the rest. The four things I think we all agree on are: No treatments; natural or small sized cells; local adapted stock; and avoiding artificial feed. But while Sam and I are pretty happy with simple foundationless, Dee is more focused on actual specific cell size. While Dee will feed barrels of honey to her bees, I have neither the time nor the honey for such things and will, if they are faced with not enough honey for winter stores, feed sugar. While Dean and Ramona like natural comb, their experience has been that they had to force the bees down with some Honey Super Cell first to get them regressed, while I've often had good luck with just foundationless regressing quickly. This may be related to the genetics or the cell size in the hives that are the source of my packages and their packages. It is difficult to say. The point is, there is no "party line" other than Dee's insistence that the Organic Beekeeping list doesn't get sidetracked talking about "organic treatments" when the topic of the list is keeping bees without treatments.

Personally, I have never been able to figure out the resistance to small cell or natural comb. While the large cell beekeepers are obsessed with Varroa, I get to just keep bees. While the large cell beekeepers are still searching for a solution to Varroa, I get to work on my queen rearing and finding easier ways to do less work. Since letting the bees build comb is easier than using foundation, and since those of us doing that are not having Varroa issues, I would think there would be a lot more interest in doing the same. The battle cry of the detractors, of course, is either that there is no study to prove it works, or that there are studies that show that it doesn't. All of this is, of course, irrelevant to me since I'm still not having Varroa issues anymore. I've been hearing such things about everything from Vitamin C and zinc helping with colds to small cell reducing mite counts all my life. In the end it's not about mite counts, although mine have dropped to almost none over time, it's about survival. No one seems to want to count living hives instead of mites, but it's a much easier thing to count. If you put one beeyard on small cell and leave another on large cell, then it seems like the "last man standing" would be an easy way to decide. If one yard dies out and the other does well, that would seem a much better way to decide than counting mites.

 

Personally, I have never been able to figure out the resistance to small cell or natural comb.

In my case it's pretty simple. I was open minded. I tried them both (small cell and natural cell). SC didn't solve any problems. It added a number of new ones. Natural cell has been consistantly 5.1mm and larger (there was one small clump of cells in one hive that were closer to 5.0). They draw what I believe is excessive drone cells....yes I know what Clarence Collison says...it just doesn't jibe with what I see in my hives. Even Dee Lusby recommends culling frames with excessive drone cells.

I know and hear of a sizeable number of beekeepers who successfully keep traditional cell hives without treatment. What is the point in going through the gyrations to force your bees to produce brood artificially small cells?

Personally, I have never been able to figure out what possessed the Lusbys put their bees on small cell in the first place.

 

How about an alternative hypothesis, just for comparison, it would be interesting to take SC bees that are doing well on their own, and see how they do on regular cell? I would wager there is a good chance they would still thrive.

My SC friends in this region seem to as many mites or more than my regular cell colleagues.

 

take SC bees that are doing well on there own, and see how they do on regular cell

I think, in a rather informal sense, Bill Owens will be doing that. He's the small cell beekeeper who worked with Jennifer Berry on her sc studies. The last I heard, he planned to use sc until his current stock of sc foundation was gone, then he was going lc.

 

RIKI, that was 2007. According to her recent (Nov 2009 Bee Culture)article, multiple recent studies show much less favorable results for SC. This illustrates the evolving nature of science. What is perceived at one point in time often gives way over time as we begin to more thoroughly understand the biology of these critters. Who knows what we will know next year?

 

RIKI, that was 2007. According to her recent (Nov 2009 Bee Culture)article, multiple recent studies show much less favorable results for SC. This illustrates the evolving nature of science. What is perceived at one point in time often gives way over time as we begin to more thoroughly understand the biology of these critters. Who knows what we will know next year?

Sorry, I've been away from this forum for a while and didn't know of that. Thanks for keeping me updated.

 

>How about an alternative hypothesis, just for comparison, it would be interesting to take SC bees that are doing well on their own, and see how they do on regular cell? I would wager there is a good chance they would still thrive.

Yes, as Barry says, Dennis did this and they did not do well back on large cell.

>Who knows what we will know next year?

What we "know" vacillates and changes constantly. Why do we think we "know" anything?

"The bulk of the world’s knowledge is an imaginary construction."--Helen Keller

 

Hi Guys,

You can read about my un-regressed bees here:

http://bwrangler.litarium.com/un-regressed-bees/

Like Barry and Michael, mites are no longer an issue for me. I stopped treating, counting, reading about, thinking about or dealing with mites a long time ago. I see one occasionally, but they are a none issue for me.

And they remain that way, even after I retrieved my hives from a commercial beekeeper's care after two seasons. You can read about that here:

http://bwrangler.litarium.com/end-in-sight/

For me, putting bees on small cell was a great step forward. And I too am indebted to Ed and Dee. I visited the Lusbys after my second season on small cell. I thought, at that time I needed some 'survivor' stock. Ed convinced me to return to Wyoming and persevere with what I had left which wasn't much!

And he was right. The bees rebounded. I bred from them. Unfortunately, most of the resulting bees were susceptible to para foulbrood. So, I treated them and recommended others do the same which got me tossed off the organic list. And then requeened everything with commercially available stock Miska's, Harbo's, NWC, Koehnen, Glenn Russians, Bolling Green Caucasians, and my own mutts. And bred from the best of the lot.

Since then, no problems with mites, disease, overwintering or anything else. The only problem I've had are winter queen failures, as some of my experiments stretched well beyond the useful life of a queen. And heaven forbid, I replace a queen and mess up the test results :>)

Getting bees on small cell sized comb is one thing. The results are amazing. But it's costly in both bees and money. It's time consuming and at times very frustrating.

And then there's small cell organic beekeeping which is another thing altogether. It involves regressing bees, isolated/off season mating, much comb culling and lots of other stuff. A small cell beekeeper can stress over his bees as much as a conventional beekeeper stresses over varroa!

For me, small cell issues have gone the way of varroa. I no longer think about them. Read about them. And I promised myself, not to write about them ;>) A natural beekeeping approach is just so much easier. And it's much simpler.

Small cell and especially natural cell beekeepers are living the treatment-free dream that's only a distant vision for most other beekeepers desiring the same. Surprising enough, not all beekeepers have that vision! But that's another story I might share sometime.

 

"What we "know" vacillates and changes constantly. Why do we think we "know" anything?" MB

Considering we do not even know what we don't know, it would be unreasonable to expect otherwise. At least scientific principals we know like the gravitational constant do not fluctuate too wildly. Scientific method still seems pretty useful and relevant to me despite inherit limitations. Somebody some day may look back at our current understanding of the universe and feel very thankful to not be livinging the "dark ages". Dark matter anyone?

Since it is possible to be "treatment free" without fussing about with this 4.9 regression stuff, why bother? This seems expensive, arduous, and unnecessary, especially in light of the three recent studies cited in J Berry's recent BC article.

 

>Since it is possible to be "treatment free" without fussing about with this 4.9 regression stuff, why bother?

What kind of losses do you get from Varroa being treatment free without small cell or natural cell? I bothered because I never succeeded being treatment free without it and since doing it have had no Varroa issues or losses at all. That is a huge weight off my shoulders.

 

"What kind of losses do you get from Varroa being treatment free without small cell or natural cell? " MB

I would say usually on average about 20% plus or minus 10%. In other words in some years one out of ten, and in others 3 out of ten. However I would be very reluctant to attribute all losses to Varroa. I feel that viral, Nosema, and nutritional issues are as, or more, important than Varroa. The rigors of commercial pollination can place heavy demands on bees and if there are any underlying stresses or issues they will be revealed.

 

I dont know about studies.sc is working for me also im saving on foundation and miteaway 2. much regard to other peoples knowledge ken

 

I been on small cell yrs now. if it wasn't working I would have less and less bees. or do think I wasted my money on a mill to keep out all chem's. say what you like or believe what you like come look around my bee yard tell me its not working===lol
Don

 

I been on small cell yrs now. if it wasn't working I would have less and less bees. or do think I wasted my money on a mill to keep out all chem's.

FBM, didn't I read about you using FGMO fogging? And using boric acid for shb?

 

My hives are 98 percent on small cell.....
I swear buy it and will continue to drive to 100 percent small cell, 4.9 or less.

 

fatbeeman writes:
I been on small cell yrs now. if it wasn't working I would have less and less bees. or do think I wasted my money on a mill to keep out all chem's. say what you like or believe what you like come look around my bee yard tell me its not working===lol
Don

tecumseh:
my bees are just your regular sized run of the mill bees and I seem to have more and more as each season passes. no small cell, no insecticide inside the hive... I must be doin' something improperly. I guess for some that ain't workin' either.

science methodology would suggest that for most folks seperating out the various convoluting factors* which makes something work or not work is a pretty difficult task. inability to systematically elimnate the various factors invariable leads to mistaken and often time delusional thinking (when you see stuff that ain't there... you qualify).

my losses pretty much mirrows ole sol and like ole sol I would have a problem deciding which losses are from varroa, which are from starvation and which are from other causes. I would say that at this time I think I have a larger losses from starvation and nosema than anything else.

*I suspect first off that most of the small cell true believers CANNOT recognize that perhaps the bees out there today could just be a bit different from the bees they had 10 years ago and therefore their comparison may mean little.

 

A study does not the truth make. Bee Culture effectively ignored the Varroa problem all through the 90's and beyond, whilst pushing Apistan (always had the back cover) and (useless) stock in deference to their advertisers. They only gave up the ship when they had to. In their defense they did a neat article on the Lusby's (in 95?) which turned me on to small cell, but I canceled my subscription and kept my own counsel for a few years to let the dust settle. I switched over to ABJ a while back. This last EAS meeting sponsored by BC focused on "Natural Beekeeping." It was a great get-together, and this time around they were pushing Russian Stock really hard. One of the biggest proponents, Kirk Webster, wrote in the ABJ a few months ago how it didn't make any difference if you were on small cell or not. He is on his own custom cell size (5.1??). There are other factors at work here: People have to make a living, whether its by selling honey or selling bees. The marketplace influences public opinion more than any study or observation. There are more new wanna-beeks out there than ever before with the "green" revolution hyped on every channel -- and there are those out there who are happy to provide these novices with the product they have at hand. Many beeks contact me for advice or have me come over to their yards -- I have seen them fork over quite a bit of money for second-rate equipment and worse condition bees. People are going to back up what they are selling. No LC guy is going to push SC bees. It is not in his best interest. No Italian sole-producer is going to trump the benefits of Russians. You have to do what works for you. Typing on these forums or hashing it out over bar stools is not going to keep your bees alive, or food in your mouths. As Richard Taylor used to say: "Time will Tell."