Hi Bill

> I think you will get a larger cluster with the larger bee and larger
> clusters are one of the factors in successful over wintering.

What you say is perfectly true for a given size of bee. We are however
comparing bees of different size and comb with a different cellsize.

For a given diameter of cluster there are more of the smaller cells in that
volume and thus more wintering bees.

The larger number of small bees has an easier time regulating temperature as
there are more of them compared to the cluster surface area than with the
larger bee.

The denser packing of the smaller bee conserves heat better as well. The
individual small bee thus has it's metabolic "engine" running at a more
comfortable pace than that of the big bee with consequently longer
individual life and lower consumption of winter stores.

The variability in cellsize and beesize within a particular ethnic group is
no more than natural variation, My Dad is 10 stone and dapper, I am 16 stone
and fat, the norm for human males is somewhere between those figures, plot
enough individuals and you will get a bell shaped distribution curve that
will nail all the figures down.

The figure 4.9 is not in any way magical or indeed fundemental. It is merely
a convenient value in the "small" range. I did some purely abstract
mathematical calculations and arrived at a figure of 4.86. I did some other
calculations based on figures from books and I came up with 4.947 (for my
bees and my area) so 4.9 is near enough for me.

> If left to themselves,
> eventually the bees will hit on the right cell size to give them the
> best survival opportunities in their area.

Managed hives are always interferred with in some way, by the management and
a beehive is not a good environment for an unmanaged colony so I doubt that
they would get the chance.

Regards From:- Dave Cushman, G8MZY
Beekeeping and Bee Breeding, http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman
IBList Archives, http://website.lineone.net/~d.cushman