J. Waggle's excellent explanation of his small cell experiences, and the
discussion in general, make me wonder if it would make sense to simply keep
a number of top bar hives for the purpose of "naturalizing" the bee
size/cell size factor over a period of say two to four years.   Then,
assuming that this "naturalization" would in fact take place,  you could
take some of those colonies and transfer them to production equipment with
small cell foundation.  It seems like this could potentially achieve
regression without the big losses that have been talked about. Has anyone
tried this?    As someone pointed out, this doesn't seem to be so much a
genetic factor as it is a matter of the bees just acclimating back to a more
natural condition given their exsisting genetic predisposition.  I
understand that climate is also a factor in the size of cells bees  build
when left to their own devices.  This means that the cell size that is
optimal for the Lusbys may not be so for us Northerners.

 Steve Noble

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