Greetings,

In my 1949 edition of the Hive and the Honey Bee, I find this interesting
and relevant passage by Henry C. Dadant (inventor of crimp-wired foundation):

"Cells of natural comb vary ... By taking the measurements along rows of
hexagons, side by side, sealed worker brood has been found to vary from 5
cells measuring 1 1/32 inches to 1 1/16 inches."

"Standard comb foundation usually is made on dies providing 857 cells per
square decimeter" [this figure is based upon the measurements just quoted]

"Races of bees such as the Italian, Carniolan and Caucasian build cells of
practically identical size, and accept *standard foundation* readily."

"The native-German black bees build smaller cells."

So, Dadant was taking the size 5.3 to 5.4 as the *natural size* for Italian,
Carniolan and Caucasian bees and using it as the standard. 

Meanwhile, Europeans were trying to upsize the Black bees (A. m. m.) to be
as bigger than these sizes. (quote: "They experimented with comb foundation
having 760, 700, and 640 cells per sq. dec. ... the excessive claims of
Baudoux were not substantiated.")

Bottom line, according to my reading of this work, the standard of 5.3 to
5.4 was based on natural comb sizes of Italian, Carniolan and Caucasian
bees. Apis mellifera mellifera was a smaller bee that they tried to upsize.

pb

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