While the "proof" offered in this thread is more "argument" than actual proof, there is tangible evidence that one can examine in the form of old foundation mills. A collection of these old mills exists at the Ohio State University facility at Wooster, OH, a part of the "Bee Museum" collection. I neglected to bring my calipers with me when I last visited, but I asked Dave Heilman (who worked at the facility with Jim Tew until budget cuts eliminated the funding for his post) about this specific issue, and he stated that the old mills in their collection did have smaller cell sizes than the foundation currently sold by the beekeeping supply houses. Anyone who is interested could likely contact Jim Tew and gain access to the equipment to measure the cell sizes, and maybe even run some wax through the old mills. Ohio State can't be the only collection of old beekeeping gear on the planet, so there may be other artifacts scattered about. So, the question of what foundation cell sizes were used in the USA in years past can be answered with authority, and I leave it to someone in Ohio to confirm Dave's statement with some hard numbers. I am not taking a stance in the discussion one way or the other, except to mention that any/all participants might do well to recall Trofim Denisovich Lysenko's career, the basic concept of the chromosome, and the concept of "regression to the mean". -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l for rules, FAQ and other info ---