>Allen, as far as epigenetic influence of cell size, it would appear to me that only the reproductives would have a chance of being affected.

There is another scenario which I have never heard mentioned. If bees
are raised in small combs, they come out smaller. No question. Then,
they will build comb. Will they build it smaller? Why would they?

It depends on how they "measure" the cells. If they have some sort of
internal "sense" of what size to make, one would not expect that to be
changed by environmental factors.

If, however, they measure the cell size using references from their
own (smaller) bodies, then the measurement would be expected to be
smaller. Like measuring a yard from the tip of your nose: the length
would vary from person to person.

But this would not be a genetic change at all, and would be expected
to evaporate if the bees were once again raised on normal sized combs.

By the way, this is the reason why I don't think bees have been
up-sized. Over time one would expect them to quickly revert to a
normal size for that race. In areas where European and African bees
were kept side by side in rustic hives, the Africans were smaller than
the Europeans.

* * *

> Most telling perhaps is determination of bee size based on the cells they are reared in.  Thus, informal identification techniques in Latin America and elsewhere do not use the bees themselves, but cell size (the average width of ten cells found side by side in a comb).  Those bees having a cell width averaging 4.9 cm or less are declared Africanized, while those averaging 5.2 cm are determined to be European.

"The Africanized Honey Bee in the Americas:  A Biological Revolution
with Human Cultural Implications" American Bee Journal (2006) Dr.
Malcolm T. Sanford

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