Dear Dr. Moller
 
Concerning the numbers of foragers in bee colonies of different
population. I think that you will find that the study you suggest has
not been done. It is no easy matter to figure out which bees in a hive
are foragers, without actually marking each bee as it leaves the hive.
However, in my masters thesis some years ago I figured out the number of
foraging trips (bees leaving hive per minute) for colonies over the
range you indicate. Basically, the number of departures is directly
dependent on the number of bees in the hive. Most books on beekeeping
say smaller colonies put out less foragers proportionately, but my data
did not confirm this. IF you are interested I can send you as copy of
the thesis, because it was not published.
 
yours, Francis Ratnieks, UC Riverside, California.