Hi Mike & Dee

Thanks Mike you are correct

 > Pardon me for butting in, but I think Dave was trying to convey a
 > different message.  I think he was saying that for Amm the naturally
 > built comb in the beginning was around 5.5 mm, not that the bees had
 > been upsized.

To add a little... The upsizing started by using 5.45 mm foundation that 
had been heated and stretched to something in the region of 5.6 mm, then 
5.7 mm foundation that was originally intended for honey storage was 
used as brood foundation, then 5.9 mm foundation was used, firstly 
imported and then made from copper matrix hinged moulds, some of which 
are still in use today. Bees that have been housed continuously on 5.9 
mm foundation consider such cells as worker cells, but give them a 
holiday on smaller foundation or freely built comb and they will then 
treat 5.9 mm foundation as drone sized cells.

Because AMM is a wide ranging race (geographically speaking) what I am 
saying is that the natural size of AMM bees is not a simple bell shaped 
distribution curve, but that different regional strains of AMM have 
means of cell size that differ somewhat, some being as small as 5.4 mm 
some being about 5.5 mm and yet others in the region of 5.6 mm, you can 
force these sizes to change both up and down, although there are some 
strains that will not go below 5.6 mm whatever you try and force them on 
to. The 5.6 mm size is also appropriate to some Russian strains 
(although they are not pure AMM)

Many beekeepers in UK were (and some still are) unaware of what size of 
cell is impressed in the foundation that they are buying.

The cell sizes that Dee quotes can only be consistently achieved using 
Italian bees or Africanised bees. UK mongrel bees can go down to about 
5.1 mm, which I attribute to the presence a high percentage of Italian 
genes.

As DNA analysis is still relatively expensive, it's use in often limited 
to bees that are good candidates for being AMM, but that situation is in 
process of modification and as the techniques become cheaper, we will no 
doubt find some more definite answers in the future.


Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net
Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable)

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