I found it pretty easy to get a handle on what was meant by regressed
bees.  In my mind it's kind of link bound feet, only the bondage for the
bees requires many generations.  You start with the natural abomination
of artificially enlarged bees and shake them down onto smaller
foundation.  (You bind the bees once).  When the bees become aclimated
to their new smaller cell environment (ie, the bound bees become
smaller), then you shake them down again onto even smaller foundation
(you bind them again).  When the bees become aclimated to their newer,
even smaller cell environment (ie, the bound bees become smaller yet
again), then you shake them down again onto even smaller foundation (you
bind them again).  Rinse, lather, repeat.  Eventually you wind up with
4.9mm foundation and bees with really small feet and smooth silky hair.
Then your bees are regressed.

OK, leave out the small feet and silky hair, but the repeated shake down
onto ever smaller foundation, "regresses" your bees to the once natural
smaller bees comfortable in their once natural 4.9mm cell size.  My
recollection is there are 3 shake downs required to get from here to
there.  I lost or forgot how the starting point unnatural large queen
gets to a queen that is comfortable on the 4.9mm cells, I'm not sure if
requeen is required every step of the way, or if the smaller bees raise
smaller queens, but I have come to understand the process (shake down on
to smaller foundation until you reach the promised land) to be the
regression, and the bees that live in the promised land are regressed
bees.

I do not mean this to be tongue in cheek, although it was written that
way,  but bees that have gone through the process are "regressed" and my
understanding is that once regressed the bees stay regressed as long as
they are kept in a "regressed" environment (small cell).  I think the
jury is still out on what happens when kept regressed bees become feral
(or as Allen asked, "Do they stay regressed?").  Archives abound with
the discussion, and have been more than replenished the past few days,
and I am sure plenty will follow.

I've heard a lot of blah, blah, blah lately, and still don't know if
small cell is the promised land (perhaps it's time we ALL go see Dee's
bees?), nor am I any closer to knowing if or what would have to done to
prove it so, but I am swayed more towards a belief that sometings going
on if onle we/she/they could get a handle on this multi-variant
equations.  My statistics background tells me it's not a solveable
puzzle.  Too many variables, too few equations.

Aaron Morris - thinking the X Files; The truth is out there!

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