> Peter, can you please explain why the study was looking at bee population instead of varroa population? 

They weren't looking at bees INSTEAD OF varroa. I looked back over what I wrote and I cannot for the life of me see how you could have come to that conclusion. The primary focus was on the possible effect of small cell size on varroa. It says that in the title and everywhere else. They ALSO looked at bee populations, bee weight, etc. As you would expect, the small cell bees were SMALLER. So even if there were more of them, honey production would not necessarily be improved by more but smaller bees. Honey production is not directly correlated to colony population in any case. There are other factors.

Factors examined:

Beginning colony mite popn. 
Adult bee weight 
Ending cm2 brood 
Ending cells of brood 
Ending mites per 24 h sticky sheet 
Ending mites per 100 brood cells 
Ending colony mite popn. 
Ending mites in brood 
Ending % mite popn. in brood 
Ending mites per 100 adult bees 

Small-cell comb technology does not impede Varroa population growth

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