Typical deformities caused by mite vectored viruses.
I saw my first varroa mite in 1993. Another beekeeper spotted them here in 1989, but told no one at the time. The mites were decimating my hives. So I treated with mite strips. By 1996, the mites were resistance to the pesticides. Less than 60% of the mites were killed by treatments. So, treatments were ineffective unless other pesticides were used or continuous treatments were applied. Some maverick beekeepers resorted to these tactics to stay in business.
The effects of placing pesticides in the hive quickly became obvious. First, queen rearing became more difficult. Queen quality dropped and supersedure rates increased. Second, the bees struggled to over winter. And surviving colonies were often small and failed to thrive. Third, even when the pesticides were no longer applied, the bees continued to suffer through the cumulative effects of contaminated beeswax.
The only option available, then, was more pesticides and more contaminated wax. Research was focused on evaluating new and more powerful chemical controls. For me, the handwriting was on the wall. Pesticides were a dead end approach.
Mite Tolerant Bees In Arizona
In 1996, Bee Culture magazine published several articles about some Arizona beekeepers who ran bees without using pesticides. L. Hines was using standard field methods and breeding from the feral bee population. The Lusby's were using small cell sized foundation and also breeding from the local bee. As a small time queen producer, I suspected the real reason for their success was an influx of African genetics. I phoned them hoping to get some bee stock to evaluate.
L. Hines was interesting in testing his stock up north. He contacted his other research collaborators and they decided against it. The fear of inadvertently shipping Africanized honey bees north was too great.
Dee Lusby wasn't interested in selling stock. She was passionately convinced that cell size was the key to mite tolerance. She preached small cell for over an hour. I don't think I interjected ten words during that time:>)
Small Cell Theory
I will attempt to summarize it. If anything gets mangled, it's the wrangler's mangling :>) Basically it goes like this. Early attempts at foundation making resulted in worker cells that were larger than those naturally built by the bees. Queen breeders, through time, inadvertently selected for a larger bee that could thrive on the artificially large comb. Although this artificially enlarged bee could thrive on the larger comb, it was out of balance with its environment. This larger bee was purportedly inferior to the smaller bees found on natural sized comb. And they would easily succumb to additional colony stress.
When the mites appeared, beekeepers resorted to pesticides. This practice placed additional stress on the colony. And it contaminated the hive with poisons which decreased the honeybees vitality even further.
The cure for these beekeeping ills was a clean broodnest and a small sized bee, on a small sized comb. To get there, the bees must be regressed or sequentially stepped back down from the larger cell size to smaller cell sizes. Treatments were abandoned to maintain an uncontaminated broodnest. And a severe selection process, that entailed breeding from the survivors, was put in place. It required isolated mating yards to control areas of breeding influence.
Many small cell beekeepers are involved in seeking out feral bees hoping that some small cell genetics still exist. And others are attempting to breed a small cell line.
My Small Cell - Mite Tolerant, Healthy Bees
This is my bee yard after regressing 16 colonies and 6 nucs.
I was convinced something was working in Arizona, but not convinced enough about small cell to spend $800 on a foundation mill.
Four years later, Dadant offered small cell size foundation for sale. I put about 16 hives and half a dozen nucs on small cell. After extensive colony losses over 90%, and comb culling, about a dozen hives were stabilized on small cell comb.
These small cell colonies tolerated varroa mites. They actively detected and removed mite infected pupa, especially during the early spring and late fall. At those times over 95% of the natural mite fall was damaged by the bees. You didn't need a magnifying lens to detect the damage. And all the different bee races cleansed the broodnest.
They over wintered better. They build up faster in the spring. And they were more healthy when living on clean, small cell comb. I had no idea cell size could play such a vital role in colony health.
Lusbys
Southern Arizona, home of the Lusbees.
Early in 2002, I visited with the Lusbys. The Lusbys are keen bee observers. They think for themselves. They didn't get on the beekeeping fringe by following behind the crowd. They are opinionated. Love to speculate. Test their theories in the real world. Love to share. And they talk bees day and night. In other words, they are interesting folks to meet, if you're a beekeeper.
I appreciate them and enjoyed their warm hospitality. Their insight into bee behavior changed my beekeeping forever. They taught me the most valuable beekeeping principal I've learned. They stressed, "let the bees show you". So I did.
Much is promoted by small cell beekeeping that didn't match my knowledge of bee biology or genetics. And much also contradicted what I had learned, from my bees, over 35 years of commercial experience. I couldn't argue with small cell's success. It worked, but I had many questions. Among them were:
- How could an artificially enlarged, but inferior bee, displace a naturally adapted and superior small cell bee?
- How could putting a bee in a larger cell change its genetic disposition?
- If small cell is so natural, why do the bees only draw out so much of it, then rework the remaining small cell foundation into larger sizes?
- And if it's so natural, why is it so hard? I lost over 90% of my bees while regressing.
Experiments
My top bar hive experiments in progress.
So, I did a little experimenting. I built a top bar hive to observe the natural comb. I measured Natural Beekeeping comb from small cell bees, large cell bees, and with Lusbees.
I searched for a relationship between cell bottom patterns and comb orientation in natural comb. I marked, organized and monitored my small cell hives using Housel positioning.
I compared the effects that blank and small cell foundation starter strips had on natural comb building.
I put small cell bees on clean, large cell comb and unregressed them.
I obtained some Lusby stock and evaluated it with a host of other commercially available stock on small cell comb. No significant differences in mite tolerance was observed.
And I recorded seasonal bee size from both large and small cell hives.
I tried using variable sized foundation to mimic natural comb.
I also read historical literature, concerning foundation manufacturing and cell size measurements, for myself.
Results
I expected that my top bar hive observations, experiments and historical research would confirm what I had heard from the Lusbys. And I expected to find answers to those nagging questions. But like the song says, "Taint necessarily so"
My small cell observations and experience indicate that small cell works even better than I anticipated. But not because bees were artificially enlarged. They weren't. And not because small sized bees are more natural than larger ones. They aren't.
The implications of my observations should be good news to other beekeepers. Because most of the onerous small cell process can be changed or eliminated. And the possibility exists to advance beekeeping by rescuing it from the industrialized concepts of the past. And focusing on a more natural way of working with the bees.
Dark Side
My natural comb observations should have been good news to the small cell camp. But they were met with open hostility there. Differing with the Lusby's, brought out an almost paranoid response. The most vocal beekeepers were often those with the least beekeeping experience. It is easier to memorize what someone else says. Believe it with one's heart. And defend it with all one's might, than it is to actually check it out for one's self.
When so much hope is placed on a method and when the results are so astounding, those promoting the method are sometimes treated as a prophet. Dare I say bee god? And their methods becomes a religion. The results: Differences take on a moral value, that is right/wrong, or even good/evil. And those that differ are labeled the same way. I see that fanatical kind of behavior as a cult.
I was eventually banished from the small cell camp when I attempted to find a non-contaminating mite treatment to avoid catastrophic colony loses when regressing. I don't know of a single commercial beekeeper that could sustain the loses the Lusby's have and stay in business. And I don't know anyone who would want to, even if they could afford it.
Unfortunately, as soon as my observations differed with the Lusby's, they stopped communicating with me. I doubt I would be welcome in their home as I once was. I don't need their approval or accolade. But it's a shame when differing ideas about bees become a barrier. Ideas can be changed in a moment. And differing ideas are often a catalyst for a deeper understanding. But friendships tossed away, especially over something as trivial as bee observations, are seldom recovered. Anyone so cavalier knows little about friendship.
Things were not much better in the large cell camp. I hoped these observations would spur others to investigate small cell for themselves. But most large cell folks were almost as paranoid and as defensive as those in the small cell camp. They behaved the same way. Some were very mean spirited as they defended their sacred cow. I was actually called a liar by those who couldn't refute my observations with their own because they didn't have any! Other, more moderate beekeepers, constantly demanded statistical driven proof, as if that were the only form of evidence. I wonder how such people get out of bed and function in such an unproven world? It was like the small cell camp but with a different rhetoric!
Man, dealing with those people got old, fast. I was only sharing my experience, for what it's worth. But I spent mega-hours on the computer writing, clarifying, etc. And I spent more time modifying, testing, and addressing questions about my observations. In retrospect, that extra work was a waste of time. I know what I'd seen and tested for myself. And it was up to others to prove and see things for themselves if that's what they needed.
Light Side
The surprising results of using small cell comb forced a re-evaluate of my beekeeping including small cell beekeeping. As a result, I've left just about every aspect of small cell beekeeping behind. It was a stepping stone to a much better way to keep bees. My bees are healthier. They are more productive. And unlike anything related to small cell beekeeping, my beekeeping is more simple and easier than ever. It's just much easier to work with the bees than against them and the bees are better off for it.
