Subject: | |
From: | |
Reply To: | |
Date: | Tue, 31 Oct 2006 14:57:38 +0100 |
Content-Type: | text/plain |
Parts/Attachments: |
|
|
Hi Bill
> It seems more likely that cell size changed because of the race of
> bee rather than an attempt to build a bigger bee.
There have been attempts in UK to build bigger AMM bees, Beowulf Cooper
established that AMM was in fact very adjustable in body size and could
be 'trained' to use cells as small as 4.7 mm and as large as 5.9 mm.
Over a roughly forty year period many colonies were 'upsized' and some
today live quite happily on 5.9 mm combs (with an apparent reduced
varroa load).
The number of colonies involved in these trials has been quite large and
even in areas where the trials stopped twenty years ago, there are still
many instances of large bees and large cell sized combs.
There are many beekeepers that took part in these trials that are alive
today and many of them are convinced that the enlarged bees were capable
of gathering larger crops, however I have never seen adequate evidence
of this alongside control comparison colonies that were not upsized.
I did make some experiments involving shaking some large sized bees onto
smaller foundation (5.0 mm - 5.1 mm) about two thirds of those colonies
responded by reducing in size although many took three regression
attempts to achieve it, but there was a portion of the total that
stubbornly refused to go below a cell size of 5.6 mm.
Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net
Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable)
-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l for rules, FAQ and other info ---
|
|
|