>
> Peter, whats to say that these swarms didn't come out of
> managed hives? I believe a high percent of what we call feral
> bees are ones that started from managed hives where a cell
> size has been predetermined.
>
What we call feral and what were feral in the study may be different.
From what I have read there were many generations of bees all in hives
lacking foundation. The idea was that foundation was not in use in the
area so even "managed" hives would not have it.


> >The AVERAGE cell size in each and
> >every hive was 5.3 mm.
>
> what does this mean? how is the average figured? by taking
> the smallest and largest size cell found and finding the
> middle? average in percent of total cells? where were they
> measured from on the comb, in the hive?
>

The text (later posting) indicates "mean" as opposed to "median". You
can see http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/dictionary/m.html#mean for a
better description. Mean indicates that all values were added and then
divided by the sample size. Without the sample size and standard
deviation I can make no real comment on the statistical significance of
the test.

I think that, given the overall information presented, the theory that
honeybees of European decent will tend to make worker cells consistently
smaller than 5.3mm has problems.