Small cell research

[KONASDAD]

I have the rare opportunity to maybe influence some bee research at Rutgers university. They plan to hire a resaerch postion at thier ag dept this summer. Before this happens however, the schools test farm wants to start some hives. I suggested maybe a small cell research project w/ these hives. This idea was well received by the powers that be. Their request to me(and now to you all) is why should the school invest anything in such a project?. In other words, I need some ammo as to why this project is needed for Honey bee health. I was also told since the dept is yet to be set up, their may be no resources in the short term so a few hives on this farm would be just the first step. Obviously, I need to first sway them to my way of thinking, and then get this set-up. The Beek Club will probably be running this until the new teacher takes over. I dont want to pass up this chanxce, once the professor gets in, it will be their choice.

[randydrivesabus]

i think its a worthy project but I think to make a valid scientific study you need a fairly large number of hives so you can eliminate the vast number of variables. do you have some kind of plan in mind?

[Kirk-o]

Just go and read Michael Bush's site or go to Beesource and read there stuff about small cell especiall read about Dee and Ed lusby.They have had a 1000
or so hives since the early 80's.People have went and inspected and examined her hives many times and been impresed especially the Mite count.It is very simple solution that is why it gets ignored.

If you do your thing nad do small cell and publish the results expect to be Invalidate by one side or the other.
kirko

[Kathyp]

the lusby experiments have not been discounted, they just can not be uniformly reproduced, so they can not be proved.  if others had been able to duplicate their success with the very same methods, everyone would have been excited to switch to small cell.

KONASDAD, i think what you are doing sounds great.  if small cell could be proven to be uniformly beneficial, it would certainly save us all time and money on mite fighting.  don't know how you can do that without removing all other variables.

one way may be to take infested bees and put them on small cell.  if small cell is the thing that keeps the mites from thriving, the infested hives should be able to overcome the infestation in a couple of brood cycles?  at the very least, you should be able to see a good drop in mite counts over the season.

[BeeHopper]

Yep !

Contact Michael or Dee or Both  :-D

I'm sure they can be of assistance.

[Understudy]

I would say Michael and Dee are the primaries in this. I have frames I will be sending this year to U of F. But have them contact me and I will throw as much at them as I can.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[annette]

This is so exciting Konasdad. I wish I could be there to help get the hives started. Good luck with it all.

Annette

[Michael Bush]

>why should the school invest anything in such a project?

How about because there are hundreds of beekeepers now keeping bees without treatments by doing it?  Seems like it's time to figure out why they are succeeding.

I would look at the research that has been done when planning it.

Here are a few more studies you may find interesting:
http://www.funpecrp.com.br/gmr/year2003/vol1-2/gmr0057_full_text.htm
http://www.apidologie.org/index.php?option=article&access=standard&Itemid=129&ur\
l=/articles/apido/pdf/2002/01/Martin.pdf
http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.com/~meettheancestors/Varroa.html

And there are others listed here:
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeod3nx/id5.html#section1

And here is a paper on modeling Varroa populations which has some models of capping and post capping times:
http://beebase.csl.gov.uk/public/BeeDiseases/ModellingBiologicalApproaches.pdf

Male survivorship:
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=13485245

Also some interesting things here:

http://www.beesource.com/pov/osterlund/abjaug2001.htm
http://www.beesource.com/pov/osterlund/abjdec2002.htm
http://www.beesource.com/pov/johnsen/bcmay2005.htm
http://www.beesource.com/news/article/beecells0597.htm
http://www.beesource.com/pov/andy/honey.pdf
http://www.beesource.com/pov/usda/abjmay1996.htm

You might also listen to Jennifer Barry's presentation, even if it is negative.  You can try to figure out how to do it differently enough to eliminate some of the objections by the small cell crowd by doing a whole yard of small cell instead of 50/50.

And of course:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesnaturalcell.htm

[KONASDAD]

As usual thank you. It will be interesting to see how this idea is handled and how much influence I can bring to this or any idea w/ this new state position. It was suggested to me that I write a "proposal". I hope they dont mean design the actual testing as i have no qualifications for that. I am or will be, preparing reasons as to why they should at least have a testing program that includes small cell. If nothing else, I'll get to assist in setting up some hives at a state agg farm and know they will be scientifically tested by students who will count mites and the like. A start.
again thanx- now, to start downloading and reading all of MB's links. There goes my weekend!

[Brian D. Bray]

Also, most studies run 1-2 years which is not long enough to adequately assess the effectiveness of SC hives.  It should be a commitment of 5+ years at a minimum.  I would recommend that they use some of the plastic SC fromt Sheets after dipping them in wax.  Some should be done as foundationless hives for a "natural" assessment, and some should be done on Mann lakes Smaller Cell foundation.   There should be control hives with as similar frame/foundation types as possible.