Back in the early '80's I attended the University of Guelph and remember Dr. Maurice Smith talking about cell size and its affect on bee development.  Someone had manufactured a lot of drone foundation believing it would make better comb for honey supers.  This proved not to be true but the university used the opportunity to place a queen on straight drone comb just to see what she'd do.  After laying drones for a period of days (weeks?) the queen adapted and started laying fertilized eggs in drone cells.  However only 50% of these workers emerged and inspection showed that the other 50% could not emerge because they had oriented their heads towards the midrib.  Further research determined that bee larvae pupate they compare the rought capping of the cell to the smooth bottom and orient their heads toward the rough surface.  In a deeper drone cell the worker larva could not reach the capping so had to guess which way to orient.  I don't know if this work was ever published.  I think Dr. Smith said the workers that did hatch from drone cells were slightly larger than normal, but this gave them no advantage.  Ted Hancock