Hi all

I have just obtained a copy of Huber's Letters. I am utterly amazed at his powers of observation! He seems to be the first to observe countless things that we now take for granted, using the observation hive that he invented. He seems to be the first to try to determine if cell size has an effect of the size of bees:


Nature has appropriated cells of certain dimensions
 for the worms of workers while in their vermicular state; undoubtedly
 she has ordained that their organs should be fully expanded, and there
 is sufficient space for that purpose; therefore more would be useless.
 Their expansion ought to be no greater in the most spacious cells than
 in those appropriated for them. If some cells smaller than common ones
 are found in combs, and the eggs of workers are deposited there, the
 size of the bees will probably be less than that of common workers,
 because they have been cramped in the cells; but it does not thence
 ensue, that a larger cell will admit of them growing to a greater size.
      
The effect produced on the size of drones by the size of the cells
 their worms inhabit, may serve as a rule for what should happen to the
 larvæ of workers in the same circumstances. The large cells of males
 are sufficiently capacious for the perfect expansion of their organs.
 Thus, although reared in cells of still greater capacity, they will
 grow no larger than common drones. We have had evidence of this in
 those produced by queens whose fecundation has been retarded. You will
 remember, Sir, that they sometimes lay male eggs in the royal cells.
 Now, the males proceeding from them, and reared in cells much more
 spacious than nature has appropriated for them, are no larger than
 common males.

Therefore it is certain, that whatever be the size of the
 cells where the worms acquire their increment, the bees will attain no
 greater size than is peculiar to their species. But if, in their
 primary form, they live in cells smaller than they should be, as their
 growth will be checked, they will not attain the usual size, of which
 there is proof in the following experiment. I had a comb consisting of
 the cell of large drones, and one with those of workers, which also
 served for the male worms. Of these, my assistant took a certain number
 from the smallest cells, and deposited them on a quantity of food
 purposely prepared in the large ones; and in return he introduced into
 the small cells the worms that had been hatched in the other, and then
 committed both to the care of the workers in a hive where the queen
 laid the eggs of males only. The bees were not affected by this change;
 they took equal care of the worms; and when the period of metamorphosis
 arrived, gave both kinds that

I concluded, that the larvæ of workers do not acquire greater size in large than in small cells. 

from
New observations on the natural history of bees, by Francis Huber. (1806)
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