> All I can say is that a few years ago, I moved a hybrid strain from
> standard cell (5.5mm or so) onto 5.1. I immediately started seeing cells
> being uncapped and chewed out, and the strain had ever shown this
> behaviour before. I don't know what happened, but something did.
Each strain of bee has its own natural range of cell sizes which will vary
with phenotype, nutritional and other history of the colony, season, and
possibly other factors, and the sizes of cells will vary over the face of
the combs and from one comb to another. Usually that range is fairly tight.
I am not sure what strain of bee you use, but a survey I did a few years
back http://www.honeybeeworld.com/misc/cellcount.htm showed that all
respondents (European strains) came up with numbers over 5mm. It seems that
some areas of Europe had higher numbers of both natural comb and foundation.
Apparently A.I. Root, and early North American mass producer of foundation
settled on 5.1mm after measuring many combs and later increased to 5.2mm.
Some people have read and re-read old literature and postulated various
things the material may or not support.
Bee researchers have travelled the world and examined bees in wild hives and
primitive hives and reported back as to the average sizes they observe in
those regions.
Since each strain of bee has a normal range of cell size and foundation, by
its very nature, forces bees to build cells of one specific size, it could
be quite suitable for one strain and not another.
Whether the effect you see is due to moving to a more appropriate size or a
constrictive size is a question that may be hard to answer. People have
observed this chewing out, and some have associated it with smaller cells.
I have observed it in Lusbys' bees.
Unfortunately, I know of no scientific examination of this question, and all
the evidence is anecdotal, inconsistent and contentious.
Personally, I found that a 5.25 cell size outperformed 5.3 and up in a
somewhat scientific test. so I suspect that 5.1, the original Root choice
for foundation might very well suit many commercial strains offered these
days.
Smaller than 5mm sizes are normally associated with AHB, but some people
claim success with EHB on smaller cells. Our tests were discontinued due to
the initial mess that the bees made of small cell foundation.
So, it is interesting to hear your comments.
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