Have you observed this before?

Indeed a tiny space will force a colony to spin many swarms in a season; 
however, I have also noticed that the bees in tight quarters are also 
forced to “miniaturize” their size, as well, to make the most of the 
limited space (which reminds me of the controversial *tiny homo erectus* 
recently discovered in an Indonesian island).  Such self-induced 
miniaturization, a form of adaptation, I suppose, seems to be not so 
uncommon, however, the now-extinct smaller (down-sized under poor forage) 
Wooly Mammoth around Siberia being a good example.  

A few years ago, I have brought home a “shoe-box” colony from someone’s 
backyard.  The wooden box was small, about two thirds of a deep, and the 
bees tried to maximize the combs by building them diagonally and crookedly 
like valleys of cranium inside a skull.  Granted they were small feral 
bees, they were the tiniest bees I’ve seen—so much so that I mistakenly 
thought I had stumbled into a different species of honey bees, like the 
old “German stock,” now considered extinct.  But they looked, to me, five-
banded Italian hybrids, a tad bigger than houseflies.  Tiny as they were, 
they packed venom as powerful as any other, nevertheless.  

The owner said the bees had been there in his backyard for at least five 
years.

Yoon 

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