Hi Robin and Everyone,

Some interesting comments on nutrition. I am sure that poor nutrition
affects the size of the bees. Maybe poor nutrition is the norm and not
the exception when brood rearing starts and ends each season.

I have read that the winter bees are physiologically different and fatten
up for overwintering. If so is it possible for them to put on surplus fat
bodies while in a state of protein deprivation? I'm not sure how much
pollen is stored in my colonies, but they do have a surplus stored under
capped honey outside the core area of the broodnest.

>So,  the observations that smaller bees can be found at times does
suggest
>those colonies may be short of pollen .  I wonder if such underfed bees
then
>draw out smaller cells simply because they use their own bodies as the
>guage - basically, that they work from the inside and shape the cell
around
>themselves.

This link between bee size and cell size is the kingpin of small cell
theory. Yet, when my small cell bees were turned loose early in the
spring, they drew out the large sized worker comb. The large cell bees
raised in that comb were the very bees that drew out my small cell comb
after the most of the original small cell bees had perished! This was
during a major honey flow and as the bees were preparing to swarm. Just
opposite of what would be expected by both nutrition and bee size.

Starter strips of small cell foundation were placed adjacent to the core
area where the bees were working on small cell comb. The starter strips
were reworked into large cell size comb.

It seems location is everything concerning cell size. The bees can
somehow individually determine what kind of comb belongs where. If cell
size was based on bee size and colonies contained a mixture of different
sized bees, chaos would be the results. It's interesting to think about
this as the bees must deal with all kinds of variables such as cavity
size and shape, seasonal food availabilty, time of year, size of cluster,
etc.

Small cell literature stessed the importance of getting and maintaining a
small cell bee. Feral hives are suggested as a source and much is written
about establishing 'areas of influence' to control the mating and
'locking' in the small cell genetics. It has been suggested that my comb
observations were the result of not having true small cell bees but
mongrels.

Yet if this link were valid, the comb building should have resulted in
chaos as each bee attempted to build large or small comb undoing the work
or her half-sister. At best, either large or small cell comb should
predominate with the predominate bee. Yet the bees didn't build large
OR/AND small cell comb. They built a structured broodnest with a
gradational change from large cell size to small cell size! And yes my
bees were mongrels, new world carniolans, mated in central California
with all the other queen producers drones in that area.:>) But what a
better test for this idea than my mongrel bees :>)

It was interesting to watch the type of comb that was built as the food
resources waxed or wained. In the heavest part of the flow, the bees
expanded comb building horizontally. They didn't change cell size or
modify the structure of broodnest. The focus would change with more bees
working in one area or the other. But the broodnest structure was
maintained.

My own experience indicates that the bees will draw out the kind of comb
they need when resources are adequate. When resources aren't adequate
they simply refuse to draw out any kind of comb.

Regards and a Great Thanksgiving to Everyone
Dennis

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