I have recently taken to letting the bees build their own comb in frames  but 
without foundation.  This year I noticed for the first time in an  isolated 
one hive apiary on naturally drawn comb that there was an assortment of  sizes 
of bee within the hive. The hive was doing as well as any elsewhere. The  
small ones didn't appear to be downy babies.  In another apiary of 3 hives  I 
noticed the same phenomenon in 2 of the hives, more so in one than the other.  In 
the third hive the bees were very uniform in size and appearance.  The  hives 
with mixed sized bees were doing much better than the uniform one; the one  
where this was more strongly exhibited being the  best.

Chris






   

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