Foundation for African bee (mellifera scutellata)

[domino]

As I understood it small cell came from the size of natural comb in the European honey bee. The claim being that foundation is printed to a larger size and if we allowed the bees to regress to their natural size there would be health benefits.

 

[Finman]

As I understood it small cell came from the size of natural comb in the European honey bee. .

When nursed bees do naturally combs, they are 5.3 mm. Every hive makes natural combs into hive.

Bees do well on normal foundations. At least I do not know anything what is so bad in normal beekeeping.

 

[domino]

Bees do well on normal foundations. At least I do not know anything what is so bad in normal beekeeping.

If you are selling small cell foundation, small cell bees or courses about small cell beekeeping I guess there are some reasons why you'd want to play up the benefits.

At the Honey Show this year the question was asked if small cell had any benefits combating varroa and the answer was a flat no.

 

[Finman]

If you are selling small cell foundation, small cell bees or courses about small cell beekeeping I guess there are some reasons why you'd want to play up the benefits.

At the Honey Show this year the question was asked if small cell had any benefits combating varroa and the answer was a flat no.

I know the backround of small cell.

 

[Fusion_power]

What other reasons are? I do not believe on those explanations.

To my knowledge, the reasons advanced so far for using small cell are:

1. It is the preferred "natural" size as built by bees. Counterpoint, I can make a good argument that bees build a range of cell sizes.

2. It helps with varroa resistance. I can neither confirm nor deny that it helps with varroa resistance. My bees do fine on both large or small cell sizes.

3. It enhances spring buildup. I can confirm and have multiple years observation to back up this assertion.

The only negatives I am aware of with small cell are that European races of honeybee do not readily draw it out and will often tear down small cell comb and build back with larger cells or with drone cells.

As previously noted, 4.7 to 4.9 mm is proper size for several African bee races.

 

[Finman]

The most important spring build up thing is that the winter cluster is big after winter.

With pollen patty and electrict heating I can make 3 fold build up in big hives.

Small hives cannot make big build up because 4 frame colony cannot nurse 12 frames brood.

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About varroa... You can look from Oregon back yards beekeepers' winter losses that small cell keepers lost almost 70% of their hives.

*****


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[SDM]

Fusion, have you kept your current bees on standard cells ?
Or are you comparing.you current bees and cell sizes with historical data of very different bees.
It's a trait that's clearly important to you, so I assume it's part of your selection. So likely something you've improved. Therefore you'd need to bee running some of your bees now on standard cell size to accurately state small cell affects build-up.