To me the take-home message is that the closer to Root's 5.2 we get for 
brood comb, the better, and Pierco standard frame cell size is the 
closest, at 5.25 mm.

 

I've learned, through not using foundation, that bees, when left to themselves, build comb with a range of cell sizes, resulting in a range of bee-sizes within the hive. I get the impression (non -scientific I know!) that hives on naturally drawn, foundationless, comb do better than those on foundation-based comb.

The combs have larger worker/honey cells around the periphery of each comb, smaller towards the centre. With combs set the 'warm way' in the hive, cell size is larger in the front and rear of the hive than in the middle.  This is found from smoothing the curves on very zig zag graph lines.  Cell size varies between 5.4 and 4.9 with an average about 5.2.

Therefore my opinion is that uniform small cell foundation is as unnatural and therefore stressful to the bees as uniform celled foundation of any size.

If you want to play this game, the easiest way if you're using hives with frames is to take combs due for renewal and cut out all the old bred-in comb, leaving a 'footprint' around the perimeter of the frame for guidance in re-building.  This is, of course, assuming that you're not aware of the presence of foulbrood in the hive.  It's best to put the frames back in the colonies they came from just in case there's disease present that you haven't spotted.

Chris



 

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm