I have recently taken to letting the bees build their own comb in frames but
without foundation. This year I noticed for the first time in an isolated
one hive apiary on naturally drawn comb that there was an assortment of sizes
of bee within the hive. The hive was doing as well as any elsewhere. The
small ones didn't appear to be downy babies. In another apiary of 3 hives I
noticed the same phenomenon in 2 of the hives, more so in one than the other. In
the third hive the bees were very uniform in size and appearance. The hives
with mixed sized bees were doing much better than the uniform one; the one
where this was more strongly exhibited being the best.
Chris
****************************************************
* General Information About BEE-L is available at: *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm *
****************************************************