>The evidence that honey bees were not in the Americas is supported by the fact that the settlers performed such heroic acts as bringing them across the Atlantic in the 1500s and around the tip of South America to California in the 1800s. If there were bees in these areas already, they wouldn't have gone to so much trouble.
That is still an assumption. I'm not saying it's not a reasonable assumption. But it's an assumption all the same.
>The evidence of varroa not being in the US prior to the late 1980s is that people like Roger Morse were traveling the globe visiting places where varroa were already a problem trying to get a handle on what they were doing to control them, BEFORE we had varroa in our bees.
And I would say that's reasonable evidence to refute a reasonable question.
>I won't stay here in this forum, if my comments are not welcome. Your continued use of the term *absurd* is annoying at best. I may think your comments are lacking in merit, but I encourage you to present them.
>>>>In this day and age anyone who is anti-science is simply blind to the fact that their very existence depends on the great effort and success of other people.
>>>I'm frankly trying to figure out how to respond to such an absurd statement. Humans have been here an awfully long time without any of what we think of as "science".
>>Michael, if you are trying to end this discussion, calling my statements absurd is a good way to do it. If you were to remove all the scientific advances from most people's lives, they would be living in tents and hunting wild turkeys for dinner.
>I am not trying to end the discussion. You did not say we would be living in tents and hunting (which is also an absurd statement since people who would be considered pretty "unscientific" have been living in houses for many millennia), you said, "their very existence depends on" it. That's a pretty large leap from their very existence depending on it to them living in some primitive way.
How can I describe the statement that "their very existence depends on" science in any other way when humans DO exist in many places without these “scientific†advances and obviously have for many millennia? Or the statement that without science we would all be living in tents? Like people couldn't figure out how to build houses until some scientist showed them? I am sorry I cannot think of a more polite term to describe the logic or probability of those statements.
>By the way, you never did supply one single study where small cell hives were compared to regular size cell hives in any systematic way to determine what the ACTUAL effect of the cell size would be.
For reasons unknown to me none of the “scientists†seem to show any interest in investigating the possibility. I've compared capping and emergence times myself. I've had hives of both types myself. I suppose without a study all of that is just my imagination. I've challenged anyone willing to try to duplicate them and those who have tried have succeeded. And, oddly enough, those who have not tried are still demanding a quote from a study.
>After thinking it over I have come to the conclusion that there has been these side by side studies. Most small cell beeks started out with large cell bees and lost the battle. They went small cell with same bees in the same location, the only thing I see having changed was the cell size.
http://www.funpecrp.com.br/gmr/year2003/vol1-2/gmr0057_full_text.htmHere's one on cell size and it's influence on Varroa infestation of the brood cells. I'm sure those who wish to discount it will do so because it was done on AHB. But the fact remains that with the race constant and all other things constant it was a test on the difference in the amount of mites infesting brood cells based on cell size.
From that document:
"DISCUSSION
Varroa mite infestations in Africanized honey bee brood are clearly affected by comb cell width. When compared in the same colony, the largest brood cells, those in Carniolan combs (mean of about 5.3 mm inside width) were about 38% more infested than the Italian comb brood cells (mean of about 5.15 mm), which in turn were about 13% more infested than the self-built Africanized combs (mean of about 4.8 mm)."
This makes a difference of 51% from the 4.8 to the 5.3mm cells. Our typical foundation here in the US is 5.45mm. They were measuring the inside of the cells, not counting the cell wall so that would make our foundation 5.35mm by that measurement. The cell wall is about 0.1mm (
http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc99/7_24_99/bob2.htm ) so that 4.8mm size in their experiment is about a 4.9mm cell by the "across ten cells" method of measuring. My "natural" comb seems to run about 4.6mm to 4.9mm in the center of the brood nest with 4.85mm being the most common.
Large cells mean one day longer postcapping times compared to small cell. One day longer postcapping time means those mites reproduce more.
http://www.csl.gov.uk/prodserv/cons/bee/varroa/ModellingBiologicalApproaches.pdf"Shortening the post-capping time
Shortening the post-capping time reduces the number of offspring
that can be produced and the time for the last offspring to
successfully mate prior to emergence. Post-capping periods for
worker European bees have been reported to vary from 268 to 290
hrs (Harris and Harbo 2000) and the model is based on a post-capping
period of 288 hrs for workers and 336 hrs for drone brood.
Worker Africanized bees usually have a post-capping period 20
hrs shorter than European bees (Rosenkranz 1999). However,
among European bees there is significant variation in the average
duration of the capped period and this is a heritable characteristic
(Harris and Harbo 2000), but it can be affected by climatic conditions.
European Apis mellifera carnica bees had a worker postcapping
time only 8 hrs longer than Africanized bees at the same
tropical site (Rosenkranz 1999).
The model predicts that, in order to bring about a 25% reduction
in mite population growth (excluding the possible effects of
reduced mating success and fertility of daughter mites) the postcapping
period for worker brood needs to be reduced by 7% (20
hrs) for worker brood, by 9% (30 hrs) for drone brood and by 7%
(20hrs worker, 24hrs drone) for both. This results in a post-capping
time close to the minimum reported for worker brood, but
drone brood has greater phenotypic variation (de Jong 1997) suggesting
that it may be possible to breed bees that produce drone
brood with a shorter post-capping period. Buchler and Drescher
(1990) reported that 25% of the variation in mite populations in
their colonies could be accounted for by variations in the post-capping
period, which fits in well with the results of our model.
However, in a survey of European bees an average 8.7% reduction
of mite infestation rate was calculated for each 1hour reduction in
the capping time (de Jong 1997). This is a much larger effect than
our model predicts, suggesting other factors are confounding the
comparison in European bees."
This would indicate that a post-capping period that is 20 hours shorter would make the 25% difference that they think is critical to surviving mite infestations.
and also:
"Altering the invasion rate of brood cells by the mite
The model suggests that the invasion rate of worker cells would
need to be decreased by 96% to reduce the mite population growth
rate by 25% (Table 1). Such a large reduction is necessary because
mites which do not enter worker cells are available to invade drone
cells. Since mite reproduction is greater in drone cells, only a proportion
of these "displaced" mites need to enter drone cells to balance
the loss of population growth. The attractiveness of the brood
to varroa mites may be affected by a number of factors which may
interact, including the size of the cell and the strength of the
pheromone signal."
And on the effect of cell size and invasion rate and pre capping times:
"The size and shape of the brood cells
The diameter of the worker cell appears to affect the invasion of
varroa mites. In the absence of drone brood, the varroa infestation
rate has been reported to be 16-50% lower in the small Africanized
worker cells than in the larger European (Italian) worker cells
(Guzman-Novoa et al. 1999, Rosenkranz 1999). This in part may
have been due to a higher visitation rate by nurse bees as the
European larvae were larger and heavier, and to the longer periods
spent capping the larger cells which would increase the time period
over which a mite can invade the cell (Message and Goncalves
1995)."
The Harbo study mentioned above correlates capping and post capping times to genetics and climate, but there are studies correlating it to cell size. (see the one at the top) I have observed a one day shorter capping time (8 days) with small cell bees.
Also the model above assumes a 288 hour post capping time (12 days). I have not observed any longer than a 11 day post capping time on my small cell workers. I have not tried to measure the capping and post capping times on small cell drones, but plan to do so in the spring.
I also hope to measure the times down to the hour instead of the day. But they were 24 hours shorter in both cases but possibly a few hours shorter than that, because I was not constantly watching them so I have a window of possibly 7 or 8 hours shorter.
A few other studies.
http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/tektran99.htmhttp://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/abjdec1997.htmhttp://www.beesource.com/pov/usda/stress.htm