Hello All,
The most famous comparison of small cell to large cell and the  study quoted
in the book "Mites of the Honey Bee" ( chapter 14 pg.200) was done
by H. Ramon,O. Van Laere and   M. Ifantidis.
The entire study can be found on page 521thru 529 in the book "Asian
Apiculture" edited by L. Conner, Rinderer, Sylvester & Wongsiri.

Possibly off the net.

The study is titled "Size of comb cell & reproduction of Varroa Jacobsoni"
After the study was released (1992) most researchers saw little future in
the hypothesis of small cell for varroa control. The study had as much
attention to detail  as any study on bees ever done.  The study ran two
years.

The conclusions of the study were startling to all of us beekeeping nerds.
Conclusions:
1. Larger cells have an influence on the arresting movement of varroa in
worker brood.
2.Bee larva in normal size worker brood (800 cells /dm) were infested about
2 hours earlier than enlarged cell size ( 640 cells /dm).

"the number of invading varroa is seriously reduced in the 640 cells dm cell
size"

I realize only beekeeping nerds like myself have read "Asian Apiculture"
(let alone own the book) but the book is for sale in many bee supply houses
and if not wanting to purchase the book you can pick up and look at pages
521-529 which is what I first did at Mid-Con bee supply years ago. The book
first sold for around eighty dollars (which seemed rather pricey at the
time )but copies today run around twenty five dollars from Dr. Conner
directly.
An interesting read for the beekeeping nerd but a boring read for most
beekeepers!
The book is taken from the first International Conference  on the Asian
Honey Bees and Bee Mites in Bangkok, Thailand in Feb. of 1992 if searching
the net for the research paper.

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison

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