DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post

**Thigmaswams** · 05-15-2007, 04:10 AM

jan,

a few days ago i saw the article you mentioned, http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/reali...beekeepers.htm

and would definitely second your opinion of it and request that david please read it.

it was very interesting to read about the average size of a cell in an organic honeycomb being 4.6mm in diameter versus the artificial honeycomb size in non-organic honey farms being 5.4. honeycomb is like a pyramid...it must be built in the proper proportions.

charran
----------
excerpt from the article:

this change from fighting the mites is mostly because i've gone to natural sized cells. in case you weren't aware, and i wasn't for a long time, the foundation in common usage results in much larger bees than what you would find in a natural hive. i've measured sections of natural worker brood comb that are 4.6mm in diameter. what most people use for worker brood is foundation that is 5.4mm in diameter. if you translate that into three dimensions instead of one, it produces a bee that is about half as large again as is natural. by letting the bees build natural sized cells, i have virtually eliminated my varroa and tracheal mite problems. one cause of this is shorter capping times by one day, and shorter post-capping times by one day. this means less varroa get into the cells, and less varroa reproduce in the cells.

05-15-2007, 04:10 AM	#22
Thigmaswams Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 481 Senior Member	jan, a few days ago i saw the article you mentioned, http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/reali...beekeepers.htm and would definitely second your opinion of it and request that david please read it. it was very interesting to read about the average size of a cell in an organic honeycomb being 4.6mm in diameter versus the artificial honeycomb size in non-organic honey farms being 5.4. honeycomb is like a pyramid...it must be built in the proper proportions. charran ---------- excerpt from the article: this change from fighting the mites is mostly because i've gone to natural sized cells. in case you weren't aware, and i wasn't for a long time, the foundation in common usage results in much larger bees than what you would find in a natural hive. i've measured sections of natural worker brood comb that are 4.6mm in diameter. what most people use for worker brood is foundation that is 5.4mm in diameter. if you translate that into three dimensions instead of one, it produces a bee that is about half as large again as is natural. by letting the bees build natural sized cells, i have virtually eliminated my varroa and tracheal mite problems. one cause of this is shorter capping times by one day, and shorter post-capping times by one day. this means less varroa get into the cells, and less varroa reproduce in the cells.
	Quote