I wrote:
>> the African types tend to be smaller than the European ones.

Dave Cushman wrote:
>This is too general a statement to be useful

What I "know" about sizes I got from Eva Crane. According to her, European
A. mellifera cell sizes vary from 5.1 to 5.5 and African A. mellifera cells
vary from 4.6 to 5.0. Obviously, the average of the Africans would be
smaller than the European, and so is the range. She states:

The Carniolan bee is rather large. Caucasica is the larger, dark or grey
mountain bee. A. m. lamarckii, the honeybee of the lower Nile valley is
small, with black and yellow abdominal bands. Monticola is the only African
one approaching European A. mellifera in size, and exists at high altitudes.

By the way, she describes all the various types at length in "Bees and
Beekeeping: Science, Practice and World Resources".

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