> Bees that are so big as 5.4mm only come down as waves in
> increment, as they did in waves of sizing going bigger...

I assume that you are responding to my observation that the article you 
cited appears to me to show nothing more than normal, everyday bee 
behaviour--so far as it goes at least--even though the starter was 4.9 and 
the heading in the article, "Retrogressing bees hived on 5.4mm cell size, to 
4.9mm."

In spite, also, of the claimed goals, the progress--so far as he wrote--has 
been simply to allow his bees to make 5.2mm cells which in my experience is 
the norm (+/-), except in regions where AHB is predominant.

Moreover, the date of the most recent part appears to be Fri, 1 Sep 2000. 
What happened after that?  Is there a piece missing?  If the experiment had 
concluded successfully I should have expected to be reading all about it. 
Instead, the articles end there, with the bees building cells of free comb 
at about 5.2mm--exactly where most of the bees (in the Northern US and 
Canada, anyhow) are found to be.

Additionally, the article repeats a ludicrous claim, "Seeing that our 
country was founded upon and originally used 4.83mm cell sizing, ".  Not 
only is that number ridiculously over-precise, but it is improvable, and 
wrong.

In looking around the (poorly organised and confusing) "Historical Data on 
the Influence of Cell Size" page at BeeSource, I saw that specific number, 
and I seem to recall that I found it in an article saying that, at one 
point, Root used 4.83 cells per inch.  (Couldn't find it again, though). 
That is quite different from 4.83mm.

The plethora of measurements and interpretations cited in comb discussions 
is confusing, and it is clear to me that many have confused themselves, and 
then others.  (See http://www.honeybeeworld.com/misc/cellcount.htm for an 
easy chart to navigate through this measurement shell game).  Refer also to 
http://www.beesource.com/POV/lusby/part6.htm for a pointer to one of the 
confusions--square decimeter vs. decimeter square--that is part of the mind 
boggling flim flam around this topic.

Whatever the history of cell sizes truly was (if it can ever be really and 
fully be known) the history is really immaterial and a distraction from the 
real question.  The real question is, "Does the 4.9 hypothesis really work, 
, and can it be commercially successful, especially in EHB stock"?

I was hoping this article would have offered a clue, but either the author 
gave up the test, failed, or simply neglected, as is so often the case, to 
finish writing up the experiment.

As for the founding of the country, seems to me --correct me if I'm wrong--  
that foundation was not even invented then.

allen

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