>  Now, I'm not attempting to get involved in another 
> small cell/large cell dispute, BUT the article does 
> show there were concerns about the dangers of 
> enlarging our bees as early as 1885.

BUT the article is clearly >>> SATIRE <<< !!

Need I point out that two "embryos" would
never become one bee?

Other heavy-handed clues abound:

1) "two a two or three pound insect" 

2) "stings capable of penetrating 
anything less than an inch of
chilled steel armor"

3) "It is true that honey is used 
to a small extent in the arts"

4) "To upset a hive of four-pound bees... 
would be simply murder"... "involv[ing] 
the trouble of a trial and acquittal in 
a court of law."

I think that someone's leg was pulled here.
 
It seems that someone has been "punked" 
from beyond the grave in an earnest 
attempt to find something, anything at
all in support of a pre-conceived notion 
about "small cell", "natural cell", whatever.



Regardless, how could any attempt to 
"enlarge" bees, no matter what the methods,
have any impact on isolated nations? If neither 
bees nor foundation were exported from nations
where the "enlargement" was claimed to have 
been done, why wouldn't those bees still be 
smaller, and thereby be "mite resistant"?

Lets look at the Caribbean, as this is clearly
a place where both poverty and remote locations
kept their bee stocks isolated, and kept their
hives free of foundation and other purchased
items from the industrialized world.

Their bees are being ravaged by the arrival of 
varroa, just as ours were and still are.  Why 
aren't their bees able to survive?

The answer is simple - the claimed "enlargement" 
had no impact, and cell size does not bestow any
magical properties on the bees that hatch from
the cells of various sizes.

If even part of what the "small-cell" advocates
claimed were true, hives in poor and isolated areas
remote from the US and Europe would be the source
of bees with:

a) smaller cell sizes

b) inherent resistance to varroa

c) inherent resistance to other things which small
   cell bees are claimed to be resistant or immune

People who never had the money to buy foundation
or import bees would be the salvation of us all.
Instead, they are desperate for help with mite 
control.

Why then, should anyone buy a story about bees 
worldwide somehow being "enlarged" by an
effort in the industrialized world to modify 
products not available to the "3rd World"?

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