# Small cell/Large cell



## Radar (Sep 4, 2006)

There is much discussion about small cell on forums like this, at meetings, indeed anytime beekeepers meet. This leads me to wonder what sort of controversy the introduction of the larger cell foundation in an attempt to raise larger bees at the time. Was it just excepted without any debate, (knowing beekeepers I doubt it), yet I cannot find any documentation or references to this event.

The sequence of events that I have been able to assemble are :-

Until the introduction of foundation the bees built comb attached to any horizontal surface.

When the first foundation was made it was made to represent the nearest to natural cell.

During the late 1800/early 1900 a Belgian found that by increasing the size of the cell resulted in increased size of bee, this was achieved be stretching the foundation in both directions.

After this, foundation was made large cell in Europe, I am led to believe that North America retained the smaller cell much longer before accepting the large cell foundation.

Does anyone know where I can find any documents or references in old books etc. to this event?

Or correct my account of events.

Was the smaller cell prior to change 4.9mm?


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## drobbins (Jun 1, 2005)

Radar

BWrangler has a pretty good writeup on the subject
lot's of other good info too

http://bwrangler.litarium.com/a-i-root-and-cell-size/ 

Dave

[ November 11, 2006, 01:31 PM: Message edited by: drobbins ]


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>This leads me to wonder what sort of controversy the introduction of the larger cell foundation in an attempt to raise larger bees at the time. Was it just excepted without any debate, (knowing beekeepers I doubt it), yet I cannot find any documentation or references to this event.

http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/celldata.htm

There were many discussions on how good or bad the idea was in bee journals of the time. Many are on the list above. 

Find ABC & XYZ of Bee Culture books and look under "Cell Size".

Here's some quotes from them:

ABC & XYZ of Bee Culture 38th Edition Copyright 1980 page 134

"If the average beekeeper were asked how many cells, worker and drone comb, there were to the inch, he would undoubtedly answer five and four, respectively. Indeed some text books on bees carry that ratio. Approximately it is correct, enough for the bees, particularly the queen. The dimensions must be exact or there is a protest. In 1876 when A.I. Root, the original author of this book, built his first roll comb foundation mill, he had the die faces cut for five worker cells to the inch. While the bees built beautiful combs from this foundation, and the queen laid in the cells, yet, if given a chance they appeared to prefer their own natural comb not built from comb foundation. Suspecting the reason, Mr. Root then began measuring up many pieces of natural comb when he discovered that the initial cells, five to the inch, from his first machine were slightly too small. The result of his measurements of natural comb showed slightly over 19 worker cells to four inches linear measurement, or 4.83 cells to one inch."

Roughly this same information is in the 1974 version of ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture on page 136; the 1945 version on page 125; the 1877 version, on page 147 says: 

"The best specimens of true worker-comb, generally contain 5 cells within the space of an inch, and therefore this measure has been adopted for the comb foundation."

This is followed in all but the 1877 version, by the way, with a section on "will larger cells develop a larger bee" and info on Baudoux.'s research.

So let's do the math:

Five cells to an inch, the standard size for foundation in the 1800s and the commonly accepted measurement from that era, is five cells to 25.4mm which is ten cells to 50.8 mm. This is 3.2 mm smaller than standard foundation is now.

A.I. Root's measurement of 4.83 cells to an inch is 5.25 mm which is 1.5 mm smaller than standard foundation.


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## Radar (Sep 4, 2006)

Thanks to both of you .This will keep me occupied for a while, I am glad there is some record of debate on this subject.


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## naturebee (Dec 25, 2004)

You could email John B. McMullan or Mark J.F. Brown at the School of Natural Sciences, Department of Zoology, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland, and ask where they got this refremce:

http://www.edpsciences.org/10.1051/apido:2006041

Abstract - Until the late 1800s honeybees in Britain and Ireland were raised in brood cells of circa 5.0 mm width. By the 1920s this had increased to circa 5.5 mm.


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