albert cannon wrote:

> Sorry i cant beleive that so called downsizing alters genetic structures
> just like that. I was taught that you cant breed dogs without tails just
> by cutting tails off and then breeding from the dogs.

...

> also does the size of the foundation cell determine the size of the
> Queen cells?

What I could gather perusing some of the information at beesource.com, the use
of larger cell size was successful in producing larger bees.  Proposing that
this size can be passed to offspring at first sounds like Lamarkian evolution
(I think that's the term) where acquired traits are thought to be passed to
the offspring.  In the case of bees, this may be partially valid.  Larger bees
may be more likely to produce larger cells because of physical reasons rather
than genetic direction; the larger cells subsequently would continue to
support larger workers.  This may include making larger queen cells as well.
That could be why the work the Lusbys are doing would require gradual
adjustment in foundation cell size -- workers grown on foundation with larger
than "natural" cell size may have a difficult time drawing out comb that's
significantly smaller than what they're built for.

A small experiment I would find interesting, similar to something suggested in
a recent post also, would be to take a start of bees grown on large foundation
(the larger the better for the purposes of the experiment) and grow them in a
top bar hive with frequent harvests of the brood comb while charting any
change in cell size.  Successive generations of workers should tend to shift
comb cells to the natural size determined by whatever genetic and climactic
factors may be involved.  Maybe when I start beekeeping with a top bar hive
I'll deliberately try to find a local beekeeper using relatively large celled
foundation to get a start.  :)

The impression I got regarding the Lusbys' work was that much of the debate
that refers to it addresses a different issue.  The Lusbys seemed to be
advocating return to "natural" cell-size for foundation in hives.  Much of the
debate I've seen on the list makes reference to 4.9mm cell-size.  This would
be the natural cell-size only for certain regions of the world.  The direction
that the debate has taken seems to be more of discussing whether "smaller is
better" with regards to varroa control.  I gather that feral hives tend to
fall fairly readily to varroa which would seem to argue against the hypothesis
that natural cell size confers significant protection (depending on how
quickly bees will revert to natural cell size).  If cell size is to be
investigated to fight varroa it may need to be smaller than "natural" and thus
could add its own stresses to the bees.

Don Hess - a not-yet-neophyte beekeeper :)