We were talking about SC tests last winter, and I said I would try to 
make my bees draw out 4,9 the way Dennis suggested. Well I did try. I 
gave 12 hives SC foundation early in spring, one by one in the center 
of brood nest.

They didn't like that foundation at all, made a total mess of it 
trying to rebuild to 5,3. One colony actually managed to get a nice 
looking 5,3 pattern and used it for brood through the summer. But 
almost all colonies left the frames empty all summer. SC frames were 
sitting there in the middle of the box totally empty except a few 
drone cells! Looks like the queens didn't lay in them due to the 
strange cell sizes. Workers kept cleaning them and leaving them empty. 
After 3 SC frames in each hive I gave up, the bees were not building 
up properly. There were only brood on one side when the empty SC 
frames were acting like dividers in the middle of hive. So I moved 
them to one side, where they were sitting still empty until autumn.

I decided to give it one last try when wintering. Moved all brood 
frames down to bottom box and gave them a full frame of SC foundation 
on top. Same result, bees totally rebuilt it to the same mess.

So Dennis, it doesn't work here with my bees. From previous experience 
I know they are reluctant to draw even 5,1 so it didn't come as a big 
surprise to me. But you need to try to know... Seems an average of 
what my bees regards as natural is 5,3 mm.

-- 
Regards

P-O Gustafsson, Sweden
http://beeman.se

******************************************************
* Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at:          *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm  *
******************************************************