# Small Cell Benefits



## blackandtan (Aug 20, 2014)

I realize that I'm starting a debate, or least extending the debate on the tracheal mite thread, but I've been reading a lot of old threads and I have additional questions.

The guy that got me started with bees is a huge believer in small cell. He actually told me, "If you want to learn about bees read everything you can by Michael Bush." Given this start I see validity in the small cell argument. The statements from people such as Michael Bush and Dee Lusby are convincing and I am currently making plans to continue using small cell. 
But . . . .
I have also read some of the scientific literature on small cells effectiveness on varroa and I am starting to waiver. Jennifer Berry's work has seemed particularly convincing. I actually found a blog from a local master beek that stated that Jennifer Berry had convinced him he was wasting his time regressing bees and would no longer worry about cell size. He went on to say that bee genetics outweigh any benefit that small cell can provide. I also seem to be the only one in my bee club that views small cell as a useful tool. This just muddies the water for me. 

I have read several "large cell" beeks that state that though small cell is not effective for varroa it does have other benefits that might make it worth while. So . . 

Are there other benefits to small cell besides reducing the mite load? If so what what are they?

Wouldn't these benefits make a stronger hive and therefore a colony that can handle a larger mite load?

I am currently viewing small cell as a piece of a bigger picture of pest management and that even if small cell doesn't reduce mite counts it does support a healthier overall hive. I do admit that if had not been exposed to small cell philosophy very early I would probably be disregarding it as anecdotal.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

How about we put the bees on natural comb and forget the whole debate? To me the bigger issue is what harm do we do by making them larger than they should be.


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## stan.vick (Dec 19, 2010)

I can't speak for small cell per se but my survivor natural cell bees do use small cell size in the brood combs. I have had much better results from them than the package large cell bees I tried to start with. I don't know if the cell size had anything to do with it.


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## jcolon (Sep 12, 2014)

I don't know much about the subject but common sense tell me they know what size cells to build. Natural comb simply makes sense. i like the KISS approach.


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## blackandtan (Aug 20, 2014)

jcolon said:


> I don't know much about the subject but common sense tell me they know what size cells to build. Natural comb simply makes sense. i like the KISS approach.


Makes sense to me. I guess I'm still trying to navigate the situation. I guess the more I read the more I'm not sure of anything.


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

Michael Bush said:


> To me the bigger issue is what harm do we do by making them larger than they should be.


Who knows? (And who is not saying!)... but humans are now larger than we were. Are we larger than we should be????? Has it harmed us?


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## Daznz (Oct 18, 2014)

I know a very good beekeeper here in nz hes been beekeeping for over 40 years and he does a lot of experimenting he brought in small cell foundation from the usa as we can't get it here it cost him over $1000 he ran with small cell for 3 seasons he found no evidence that it was better for reducing varroa.


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## jcolon (Sep 12, 2014)

Especially here in America. Seems like XXL is the most common clothing size at Sam's. 



snl said:


> Who knows? (And who is not saying!)... but humans are now larger than we were. Are we larger than we should be????? Has it harmed us?


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## Snowhitsky (Mar 1, 2014)

Large or small cell may be useful or not as the case may be. I don't have the experience to comment on the effectiveness of either but I am in full agreement with Michael Bush on minimizing my workload and letting the bees build the cells they want.


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## jcolon (Sep 12, 2014)

BINGO !


Snowhitsky said:


> Large or small cell may be useful or not as the case may be. I don't have the experience to comment on the effectiveness of either but I am in full agreement with Michael Bush on minimizing my workload and letting the bees build the cells they want.


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## Santa Caras (Aug 14, 2013)

I was reading about the anatomy of bees recently and learned insects dont have lungs, they have some type of cell on their shell that converts the oxygen. It was noted that the larger the insect, the less effective this oxygen conversion was. Dont know if this has anything to do with the price of tea in China but thought I'd throw that out there.


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## SS1 (Jun 1, 2013)

`


jcolon said:


> BINGO !



Bingo again..

To me it does not matter if it helps. I am beyond any doubt CERTAIN that natural cell does NOT hurt.
I am also going to step out on a limb here.. I needed THREE FRAMES and was too lazy to drive back to the shop and get them, so I put in three pieces of plastic small cell I had laying in the dust.. The intent was to replace them next time around, but as usual I promptly forgot.. So, I was mildly amazed those standard large cell bees had perfectly drawn those frames and the queen had them full of brood... After that, I quit paying attention to cell size completely.. I run mostly foundation less frames.. NOT because of the multitude of fantastic magical benefits.... but because I am too cheap to pay for foundation.. In 40 hives I have a majority of foundation less frames, and am exceptionally happy.. The frames I have foundation in were from buyouts and cost me very little..
40 medium 3 box hives with two supers each = 2000 frames PLUS 11 double nucs.. 20 more hives, and 20 more nucs for next year, and thats over 3300 frames.. Foundation is what? A dollar a sheet? I paid for my wood shop equipment JUST by not buying foundation!

Foundation less is not for everyone. Like everything beekeeping related, it has its benefits and its drawbacks. You just need to give it a go and see if the benefits and drawbacks balance each other out for you.


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## scituatema (Aug 30, 2014)

I do not know if small cell has anything to do with varroa but there is % 9 more cell per frame and keeps brood warmer when small cell used. 
I read brood cycle is 20 days in stead of 21 days, is that correct?


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

I'm in the group that uses small cell but not for purported varroa benefits. The advantage of small cell in the brood nest is that the cluster can cover more cells and the bees can raise more brood for the size of the cluster. This results in a measurable increase in spring buildup. Since I also use 11 frames in the broodnest, I get the maximum benefit from using small cell.

You did not ask, but there are disadvantages to using small cell. The two that cause me problems are building drone cells around the edges of the comb and the tendency of foundation to bow slightly to one side or the other which results in a comb too thin on one side for brood. Since I build my own frames, I can minimize the bowing, but drone cells are tough to control. Because I often want large drone populations for queen mating, I sometimes put a shallow frame in a deep brood chamber. The bees will build drone comb on the bottom of the frame which seems to satisfy most of their need for drones and allows me to mate queens with very high confidence they are mating to my mite tolerant line of bees.


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

I have grown really fond of my big clusters of little bees raised on Small cell. The jury is still out in my opinion. But I have bees I have not treated going into their third season without fatal levels of mites. They have some but not a lot. Of course I am also trying mite biter genetics, I do brood breaks, cull some drones and anything else that will reduce the number of mites my bees have to deal with. I only saw one DWV drone all summer. 

I don't mind that others are not trying small cell. I just wonder why so many of them make a huge fuss about me trying it?????


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## Beeonefarms (Nov 22, 2013)

You might just be successful and with no easy way for someone else to duplicate it..thus jealousy. ..keep on beekeeping on


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## rwurster (Oct 30, 2010)

I run all small cell and natural cell in all my brood boxes. The biggest benefit I have ever seen from small cell is more bees per frame.


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## marshmasterpat (Jun 26, 2013)

rwurster said:


> I run all small cell and natural cell in all my brood boxes. The biggest benefit I have ever seen from small cell is more bees per frame.


Bingo! Whether it helps keep the mites out or not, you have more bees being raised per square inch and more bees per frame as rwurster stated. More bees mean more pollen collection, more nectar collected, and maybe more honey produced. 

So that is why I am going small cell. As a noob, I have no clue whether it helps colony health or not.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

I always thought that the number of bees was limited by the number of fertilized eggs a queen could lay in a day. If I understand this...some of you are of the opinion that the number of eggs laid is driven by the cell size?


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## marshmasterpat (Jun 26, 2013)

beemandan said:


> I always thought that the number of bees was limited by the number of fertilized eggs a queen could lay in a day. If I understand this...some of you are of the opinion that the number of eggs laid is driven by the cell size?


I likely worded that incorrectly. But all things being equal, in a nuc or single or double medium as I use currently for wintering... a decent queen could load up every frame easily if she has the resources to do it. So under those situations the small frame hive would have more bees than a larger cell.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

snl said:


> Who knows? (And who is not saying!)... but humans are now larger than we were. Are we larger than we should be????? Has it harmed us?


Being larger seems to go along w/living longer too. Everything is as it should be, or it wouldn't be. Kinda like "Everything works if you let it."


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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

sqkcrk said:


> Everything is as it should be, or it wouldn't be.


Yes... We were meant to have type 2 diabetes for example.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Sure. It's as natural as anything, don't you think? Not everything in existence is necessarily beneficial to one's personal existence.

Everything is as it should be, if only you had eyes to see it's so. Even Ebola. Even ISIL. Bee diseases and pests too. Only those who resist the natural condition of things, life itself, hold fast to panacea and fantasies of The Garden of Eden.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

What Dan is asking is not how many more pupae there are on a SC comb. If the queen has a maximum number of eggs she can lay in one day, and a SC comb has more cells, does that mean that with the increased number of pupae in the SC combs wouldn't there be a correspondingly fewer number of combs of brood?

Or would there be the same number of combs of pupae with SC being maintained at any one time, meaning the queen is laying more eggs per day.


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## beekuk (Dec 31, 2008)

Michael Palmer said:


> Or would there be the same number of combs of pupae with SC being maintained at any one time, meaning the queen is laying more eggs per day.


 Well, being as the cells are smaller, the queen does not have to walk so far to each cell...so maybe she gets the time to lay more eggs.


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## scituatema (Aug 30, 2014)

Is that correct that brood cycle is 20 days, instead of 21 when small cell used ?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

It's an observation somebody made when watching one marked brood cell in an observation hive. He claims it hatched in 20 days and the legend was born.

Might be true they hatch faster maybe there are some other info or studies I wouldn't know.

I know from messing with my incubator that queen larvae hatch faster if raised at a higher temperature. Don't know if that applies to worker larvae. Did brood temperature trials with my own hives to verify claims small cell hives are warmer, wasn't true for my bees.


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## scituatema (Aug 30, 2014)

Can we then say 20 day brood cycle is a myth?


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

scituatema said:


> Can we then say 20 day brood cycle is a myth?


Might be a bit _premature_ to brand that as a _myth_!  :lpf:

Here is what the USDA _Agricultural Research Service_ says ...



> *Metamorphosis of Honey Bees*​
> Development of honey bees is similar to the metamorphosis in butterflies. The stages of development and the duration of each stage for a worker bee are given by the following sequence:
> 
> egg (3 days) --> larva & prepupa (8 days) --> pupa (9 days) --> adult
> ...


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Thanks Rader I don't think it is a myth either, larval development time is influenced by several factors and therefore falls within a band.

While sc faster development time is not yet proved a myth, to my knowledge anyway it is not yet proved as fact either.

It's a fascinating possibility.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

beekuk said:


> Well, being as the cells are smaller, the queen does not have to walk so far to each cell...so maybe she gets the time to lay more eggs.


Ahh, I knew there must be something I wasn't considering. Thanks, I hadn't thought of that Pete. 

How many small cells could a queen fill up, if a queen could fill small cells....


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## TalonRedding (Jul 19, 2013)

beemandan said:


> I always thought that the number of bees was limited by the number of fertilized eggs a queen could lay in a day. If I understand this...some of you are of the opinion that the number of eggs laid is driven by the cell size?


On top of that, just because one may have more bees on SC does not necessarily mean more pollen or nectar influxes. A worker's load will always be proportional to its size, so the smaller the bee, the smaller the load. :gh:


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

Stephen J. Martin, a pre-eminent Varroa researcher, wrote a very relevant paper. http://www.researchgate.net/profile...ral_conditions/links/0912f50616995ecf48000000

The discussion in that paper presents both sides of the discussion and the whole paper is worth reading. The paper by Le Conte and Cornuet on the heritability of cell size and variation in the foundation lineages is in the "grey" literature and I do not have a copy. 

Ontogenesis of the mite Varroa jacobsoni Oud.
in worker brood of the honeybee Apis mellifera
L. under natural conditions

Emphasis has been placed on breeding Varroa 'resistant' bees by selecting bees
that have a shorter sealed brood period (Moritz, 1985; Le Conte and Cornuet, 1989;
Btichler and Drescher, 1990; Mortiz and Jordan, 1992). This would reduce the
number of mites able to complete development. The aim of this study is to repeat
lnfantidis' original work in greater detail using the knowledge that the first mite
offspring is male.



Biichler and Drescher (1990) obtained a correlation coefficient of r = 0.48
between the duration of the sealed stage and levels of mite infestation. However
the number of mite offspring that could complete development in worker sealed
brood of colonies with the shortest {278 hours) and longest (289 hours) sealed
periods would, in fact, be the same ( 1 male and 3 female) (see Fig, 2) or at most
only' affects the 4th offspring. Figure 3 shows that the 4th offspring only contributes
a small proposition (13%) to the total number of female mites produced, whereas
the development of the 2nd and 3rd offspring ( 138% of total female mite production)
will not be affected. This may account for the low coefficient value 
obtained. 

The difference in the observed mite levels could be due to variations
within the colony (uP to 19 hours) in the development of the worker sealed brood,
mite re-invasion, small variations in the initial mite infestation and known large
variations in the reproductivity of the mites. This is supported by the fact that
colonies studied by Biichler and Drescher (1990), with the same sealed period (286
hours), had both the lowest (500) and highest (3.200) numbers of mites.

Similarly, Le Conte and Cornuet (1989) found significant differences in the
duration of the worker sealed brood phases in three European races of Apis mellifera.
These were attributed to differences in nursing behaviour of the worker bees and
in the distribution of brood within the colony. However, the differences between
the shortest ( 11.84 + 0.33 days) and longest ( 12.28 + 0.36 days) sealed period would
according to the data presented in this study, again have no effect on the number
of mites produced by cells from each colony.
==========================================
Martin also authored a study that found no difference between development time in EHB and AHB cells, but a difference in infection due to mite mortality in the initial daughters.


Marla Spivak co-authored a study on Mexican bees that looked at Mite reproduction 

A multifactorial study of the resistance of honeybees
Apis mellifera to the mite Varroa destructor over one
year in Mexico
Luis Mondragon, Marla Spivak, Remy Vandame https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/file/index/docid/892145/filename/hal-00892145.pdf

The Chiapas study used three lineages (wild AHB, Minnesota VSH x AHB crosses, and Glenn x AHB crosses).

In the discussion they state:

The average number of eggs laid per mother
mite observed in this work was similar to that
found in AHB from Mexico (Medina and
Martin, 1999) and EHB from UK (Martin,
1994): 4.11, 4.86 and 4.93 respectively. Because
there was no variation in fecundity through
time, this factor could not explain the tolerance
of honeybees toward the mite.

The main explanatory variable the study detected "number of mated female offspring
produced per mother mite (Wr)" (they dissected >9.5 day (230 hours) larvae comb and counted young daughter mites).
There was no difference in the Wr value between the lineages.
The paper states:
This is the first study in which changes in Wr
through time are reported in a tropical region.
The mean annual Wr was 0.88 and fell between
the values found in EHB from UK (1.01) and
AHB from Yucatan, Mexico (0.73), but was
much higher than the ones found in AHB from
Brazil (0.64) (Corrêa-Marques et al., 2003). 


The Chiapas paper has a fascinating graph of changes in mite reproductive success over time. This shows that reproduction falls off in the hot-dry season, and peaks in the rainy/temperate season. Indicates that external climate may have the controlling factor in mite epidemic development, as reproductive rates below 0.7 are likely not sustaining, and rates above 1 cause outbreaks.



This graph would indicate that very hot - very dry climates (i.e. Tucson) may have natural mite resistance from external climatic factors, irrespective of hive management.



A more recent paper from Brazil documents that mite survival is evolving towards *higher* virulence. http://www.scielo.br/pdf/ne/v36n6/18.pdf 

Changes in the Reproductive Ability of the Mite Varroa destructor
(Anderson e Trueman) in Africanized Honey Bees (Apis mellifera L.)
(Hymenoptera: Apidae) Colonies in Southern Brazil
FRANCISCO E. CARNEIRO

The percentage of fertile mites increased from 56% in the 1980s to 86% in 2005-2006. The difference
in the percentage of females that produced deutonymphs, female progeny that can reach the adult stage
at bee emergence, was even greater. In 2005-2006, 72% of the females that invaded worker brood had
left at the least one viable descendant, compared to 35% in 1986-1987.


This is of relevance to the current discussion, because much of the intellectual foundation of small cell theory is based on the Brazilian papers of De Jong. The newer paper indicate that Varroa is accommodating to the AHB size cells.


The influence of brood comb cell size on the reproductive behavior of the ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor in Africanized honey bee colonies

Giancarlo A. Piccirillo1,2 and D. De Jong3 http://www.funpecrp.com.br/gmr/year2003/vol1-2/gmr0057_full_text.htm

The Africanized comb cells were significantly smaller in (inner) width (4.84 mm) than the European-sized comb cells (5.16 and 5.27 mm for Italian and Carniolan cells, respectively). The brood cell infestation rates (percentage cells infested) were significantly higher in the Carniolan-sized comb cells (19.3%) than in the Italian and Africanized cells (13.9 and 10.3%, respectively). The Carniolan-sized cells also had a significantly larger number of invading adult female mites per 100 brood cells (24.4) than did the Italian-sized cells (17.7) and the natural-sized Africanized worker brood cells (15.6). European-sized worker brood cells were always more infested than the Africanized worker brood cells in the same colony.


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

*Breeding Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) for More Rapid Development of Larvae and Pupae*
Author: HARBO, JOHN R.
Source: Journal of Economic Entomology, Volume 85, Number 6, December 1992 , pp. 2125-2130(6)

_These data predict that selective breeding from 10% of the population should reduce the mean capped period of workers by 5 h in a single generation._
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/esa/jee/1992/00000085/00000006/art00014

(That was 1992. Turned out it didn't help with mites. Project was cancelled.)


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Thanks guys well there's some useful info.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

A better explanation is that a given size colony can cover a certain amount of comb. If that comb has 20% more cells, then 20% more bees can be raised in a given brood cycle. Once the colony reaches peak population, the queen's laying ability becomes the limiting factor. So if the limiting factor is how much comb the colony can cover, then there is a benefit to using small cell.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Fusion_power said:


> If that comb has 20% more cells, then 20% more bees can be raised in a given brood cycle.


Unless the bees are significantly smaller. If the brood covering, small cell worker bees are thirty per cent smaller, as has been purported by some, then it would take thirty percent more bees to cover the same area.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Can small cell bees fly as far away from their hive to forage?


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Natural cell size is the best - evolution has already done all the work of figuring out the best cell size.


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## peterloringborst (Jan 19, 2010)

shinbone said:


> Natural cell size is the best - evolution has already done all the work of figuring out the best cell size.


Hmm. There is no best cell size, that accounts for why cell size varies so much. The size of cells constitute a range of sizes, not an actual one size fits all. There is no one best size of honey bee, either. They range from the tiny Apis florea to the giant honey bee, Apis dorsata. Beyond that, there is no best size of bees in general. For example



> Sonoran Desert bees range in size from the world’s smallest bee, Perdita minima, which is less than .08 inches (2 mm) to carpenter bees (the genus Xylocopa), gentle giants that may have body lengths of almost 1½ inches (40 mm) and weigh over a gram.


As a side issue, it is apparent the larger bees forage farther. 



> Foraging distance increased with body size (IT span) non-linearly; larger bees had disproportionately larger foraging distances than smaller bees. For bees, the relationship between body size and foraging distance fits a power function with b > 1: larger bees forage disproportionately farther than smaller bees. Measuring body size (IT span) in bees is a quick and efficient method that can now be used to estimate foraging distance based on the equations we.


Greenleaf, S. S., Williams, N. M., Winfree, R., & Kremen, C. (2007). Bee foraging ranges and their relationship to body size. Oecologia, 153(3), 589-596.


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

peterloringborst said:


> Hmm. There is no best cell size, that accounts for why cell size varies so much. The size of cells constitute a range of sizes, not an actual one size fits all..


A really good illustration is on the pages maintained at "Resistantbees.com" by Stephan Braun. 

(I don't know the original source of this illustration which has the file title "bwrangler_comb"

My observation: Comb is structural network as well as the substrate to raise larvae. Comb size follows the catenary curve of a suspension bridge cable. As comb gets farther from support it requires a denser network of ribs to maintain structural integrity. 

Humans have exploited this structural plasticity that bees accomodate to generate "perfect" comb size according the humans bias. The bees don't care, and the imputation of "perfectibility" from humans pushing one unproven theory or another (Baudot giant bees, small cell, etc) is simply an illustration of the capacity of humans to dupe themselves with universal panaceas.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

Peter....does the Greenleaf paper you cite above talk about honey production of the larger bees?

I'm going to take a wild guess and suggest that when that paper is talking about bee sizes they are not talking about size of honeybees raised on comb of different sizes, but of Carpenter bees vs. Sweat bees.

That paper would support the claim that (in the context of a discussion of artificial enlargement of honey bees) larger bees don't produce honey (because larger bees are not honey bees) with as much accuracy as it supports your claim of forage distance.

What a time waster...one that (given your ability to read and understand a study) is either purposefully misleading or something you didn't bother to actually read or comprehend.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

In fact...quoted from Greenleaf the study you cite Peter...


> Additionally, we did not review the extensive data on Apis mellifera foraging distance that has been collected using the bee dance interpretation technique, because our focus is on interspeciWc, not intraspeciWc, variation.


It's hard to understand and cite work that you have not read without looking foolish.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

JWChesnut said:


> (I don't know the original source of this illustration which has the file title "bwrangler_comb"


I believe that photo originated with Dennis Murrell. You can see the same photo on his site here:
http://bwrangler.litarium.com/natural-comb/
At one time Dennis used the URL of BWrangler.com, so the JPG filename fits with that.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

JWChesnut said:


> The bees don't care, and the imputation of "perfectibility" from humans pushing one unproven theory or another (Baudot giant bees, small cell, etc) is simply an illustration of the capacity of humans to dupe themselves with universal panaceas.


Rarely a truer thing said.


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## Waggle (Mar 7, 2013)

Is it possible that although larger honey bees can fly farther and carry more nectar they also may consume more calories in doing so and thus bring less nectar back for storage. Has anyone actually studied the efficiency of larger verses smaller honey bees?


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

Waggle said:


> although larger honey bees can fly farther and carry more nectar


We can't base this off of the study Peter mentioned above as it had nothing to do with apis mellifera.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Waggle said:


> Is it possible that although larger honey bees can fly farther and carry more nectar they also may consume more calories in doing so and thus bring less nectar back for storage. Has anyone actually studied the efficiency of larger verses smaller honey bees?


Argument over which bees can fly further, burn less calories, etc, are interesting. What counts end of day though are results.

Back when comb foundation first started getting made and people were fiddling with size and looking for the "ideal size", experiments were done. At that time they concluded bees raised on a size 5.3 to 5.4 produced a bigger harvestable honey crop per hive, and that is why that size became the standard.

All went well for best part of a century, till varroa mites showed up, and at that time some people concluded that the varroa mite issue must be caused by the size of the comb foundation so we should go to a small size of 4.9.

Whether that is true or not depends entirely on who you ask.

However the argument that "natural" cell size must be better for varroa because "bees know best", in my opinion cannot be true. Because varroa mites are outside the evolutionary experience of _apis melifera_ (European honey bees), so it would be impossible for them to inherently know what size is best to deal with varroa. They just know what size they like best for other reasons, which include economy for honey storage, brood nest management, required comb strength, etc.

In nature a hive builds a range of sizes for various purposes in different parts of the hive. The whole purpose of a moveable comb hive was interchangeability, and the early pioneers wanted a one size that can go anywhere solution. 5.3 or 5.4 did the job the bees find it acceptable in any area of the hive. But at that time nobody had even heard of varroa mites they were not a consideration.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

> Has anyone actually studied the efficiency of larger verses smaller honey bees?

Yes. Dr. Roy Grout. His conclusion is the cell size and therefore bee size, made no difference in productivity. My guess is that IF there are any differences they would be difficult to prove as the statistical variance from one hive to the next under identical circumstances would be greater than the difference made by cell size.

I see no noticeable difference.


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## peterloringborst (Jan 19, 2010)

deknow said:


> In fact...quoted from Greenleaf the study you cite Peter...
> It's hard to understand and cite work that you have not read without looking foolish.


Listen Dean. Whether or not I look foolish to you or not means about as much to me as whether the temperature this morning is 31 or 32. But if you had read what I said, you would have understood. I said:



> As a side issue, it is apparent the larger bees forage farther.


_As a side issue. _There are other bees in the world besides honey bees, you know!_ That is what I meant. _The difference between small cell and large cell honey bees is like the difference between 31 and 32. Not enough difference to make a difference. However, the behavioral differences between different subspecies of honey bees are much greater. 

Honestly, looking back on the thousands of hours people spent measuring the size of honey bees, the size of their tongues, the size of their cells, it seems absolutely comical now. When dealing with honey bees, behaviors are far more important than characteristics like size, color, who raised them, etc.


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## TalonRedding (Jul 19, 2013)

Michael Bush said:


> > Has anyone actually studied the efficiency of larger verses smaller honey bees?
> 
> Yes. Dr. Roy Grout. His conclusion is the cell size and therefore bee size, made no difference in productivity. My guess is that IF there are any differences they would be difficult to prove as the statistical variance from one hive to the next under identical circumstances would be greater than the difference made by cell size.
> 
> I see no noticeable difference.


This makes perfect sense to me and is what I was trying to explain earlier. It doesn't matter the size of the bee when it comes to productivity, because it's work will be proportional. A hive of small bees will have more individuals to make up for lack of productivity per individual, whereas a hive of larger bees will have fewer individuals that can be more productive per individual. The limiting factors are the amount of resources a hive has access to and how many eggs a queen can lay. I see it as more of a concept of biomass than anything.


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## SS1 (Jun 1, 2013)

Michael Bush said:


> > Has anyone actually studied the efficiency of larger verses smaller honey bees?
> 
> Yes. Dr. Roy Grout. His conclusion is the cell size and therefore bee size, made no difference in productivity. My guess is that IF there are any differences they would be difficult to prove as the statistical variance from one hive to the next under identical circumstances would be greater than the difference made by cell size.
> 
> I see no noticeable difference.



Well said.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Michael Bush said:


> I see no noticeable difference.


Didn't know you had large cell bees to compare the difference to Mike.

However I agree with the statement, firstly there is a difference between hives anyway, and after that I couldn't really pick a major difference with my own sc vs lc bees.

Treatment free was a different story, there was a major difference.

I believe the research the early comb foundation pioneers did cos they had to put their money where their mouth was. But it was a different world then.

Maybe we don't need these "my size bees is better then your size bees" arguments.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Didn't know you had large cell bees to compare the difference to Mike.

I had large cell bees for 28 years. I think I have a good idea how productive they are. I had some of both during 2001 and 2002.


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## peterloringborst (Jan 19, 2010)

> I see it as more of a concept of biomass than anything.


Wrong. Do you think because a guy is super tall he will be a good basketball player? Or because someone has a great big head, they'll be smarter? Honey bee colonies have behavioral traits that make them good at things, such as foraging, defense, etc. or bad at the same things. Furthermore, each colony is a composite of many lineages (many daddies) and so each is unique in all respects. 

Finally, even if you have ten colonies all with queens from the same source and drones from the same source, they will not perform the same. The minute they go out into the environment, each colony has a different set of experiences and some will be more successful as a result. To boil it down to a matter of "how many bees do they have" is to miss all of this and more. Sorry.

If you don't believe me, I can cite sources till the cows come home. For example:



> Personality differences (i.e. consistent between-individual differences in behaviour) play an important role in the lives of humans and other animals, influencing both their day-to-day actions and their long-term reproductive success. For organisms living in highly structured groups of related individuals, such as colonies of social insects, personalities could also emerge at the group level. However, while numerous recent studies have investigated individual-level personality, the phenomenon of collective personality in animal groups has received little attention. In this paper, we apply the concept of collective personality to colonies of honeybees (Apis mellifera). We document the presence of consistent differences among colonies across a wide range of collective behaviours and demonstrate a link between colony-level personality traits and fitness. The colonies in our study showed consistent behavioural differences in traits such as defensive response, foraging activity and undertaking, and several of these traits were correlated as part of a behavioural syndrome. Furthermore, some of these traits were strongly tied to colony productivity and winter survival. Our results show that the concept of collective personality is applicable to colonies of social insects, and that personality differences among colonies can have important consequences for their long-term survival and reproduction. Applying the concept of personality to close-knit animal groups can provide important insights into the structure of behavioural variability in animal populations and the role that consistent between-group behavioural differences play in the evolution of behaviour.
> 
> Wray, M. K., Mattila, H. R., & Seeley, T. D. (2011). Collective personalities in honeybee colonies are linked to colony fitness. Animal Behaviour, 81(3), 559-568.


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## TalonRedding (Jul 19, 2013)

peterloringborst said:


> Wrong. Do you think because a guy is super tall he will be a good basketball player? Or because someone has a great big head, they'll be smarter? Honey bee colonies have behavioral traits that make them good at things, such as foraging, defense, etc. or bad at the same things.


Well, I have yet to see an NBA team less than 6' tall and just for kicks on the brain size, here is a link: 
http://gnosticwarrior.com/head-size-matters.html

All humor aside, I think you mistook what I meant or I just didn't communicate well enough. I certainly understand that behavioral traits are very influential in productiveness. My point there was to state that just because a frame of small cell comb has more cells per frame does not necessarily mean that youll have a more productive colony due to more bees.

Additionally, does not behavior affect biomass?


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## rwurster (Oct 30, 2010)

Oldtimer said:


> They just know what size they like best for other reasons, which include economy for honey storage, brood nest management, required comb strength, etc.


I knew at the time I should have taken a picture but I didn't. I ordered 20 sheets of SC foundation and put them in hives this past spring to get drawn. A few hives drew out the comb and used it for honey storage. It is a very, very odd thing to see SC used for honey storage. It did however make me chuckle.


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## KQ6AR (May 13, 2008)

I've been using small cell with IPM for the last 6 years. Our winter losses run from 10-20%
No chemical treatments.

I can't say the small cell is the reason for our success, but I'm not changing anything.


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## peterloringborst (Jan 19, 2010)

deleted by author


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## SS1 (Jun 1, 2013)

TalonRedding said:


> My point there was to state that just because a frame of small cell comb has more cells per frame does not necessarily mean that youll have a more productive colony due to more bees.



More productive? that depends entirely on the bees.. But what it DOES do is give the queen..... ? twenty thousand ? More cells per hive to lay eggs in.. Given a large cell hive and a Small/natural cell hive of equal amount of bees to cover those cells the difference in brood will be small, but that gap will rapidly change as the amount of nurse bees grows..

From split to adding the second box I see little difference.. From second box to first super I see at least a third faster growth between my dedicated natural and small cell bees compared to those still running large cell.. This is pure observation, nothing scientific, but I have seen that same difference each year with overwintered colonies and spring splits.


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## TalonRedding (Jul 19, 2013)

SS1 said:


> Given a large cell hive and a Small/natural cell hive of equal amount of bees to cover those cells the difference in brood will be small, but that gap will rapidly change as the amount of nurse bees grows..


I'd say that's possible. But it depends on the queens laying ability. My question here is what if a large cell queen and a small cell queen is laying at the same rate, thus bees hatching and making new comb at the same rate? Will there really be any difference? So what if small cell has more cells....it's all happening at the same rate, influenced by the queens laying ABILITY.
I should probably point out here too just like I did in another thread that I am neither for or against small cell. Right now I have bees on both natural comb and "large" foundation, and the ones on foundation have far surpassed the natural comb in productivity (I say this because the foundation directly impacts the amount of worker brood present, which I think produces the "behavior" of being a productive hive).


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## SS1 (Jun 1, 2013)

Like you, I am neither for or against.. and that pertains to most things beekeeping.. I can only talk about the things I do, or have done...


My question here is what if a large cell queen and a small cell queen is laying at the same rate, thus bees hatching and making new comb at the same rate? Will there really be any difference?

OK, This is JUST a guess... But I would say the difference is in the availability of cells to lay in.. If the large cell queen had the availability of cells to deposit eggs in I doubt there would EVER be any difference between the two.. Perhaps it is because the small cell hive can cover a few more cells with less bees? Over time that difference adds up? Honestly I do not know, and it MAY all come down to the fact that the queens I have in those hives are more prolific than the queens I have in large cell hives?? I HAVE noticed the difference, but I cannot point to a variable as proof..


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Having read that, guess I should add to what I said before that there was not much difference in production between my small and large cell hives. But that could be a little misleading because I didn't mention my natural cell hives. Honey production wise they make a lot less honey, because they have a huge number of drones.

In my case that suits me fine because I breed and sell bees, drones are good and now I'm retired I don't want to mess with extracting huge volume of honey. However if honey production is the measure, my natural cell hives fall well behind both the large cell and small cell hives.

All of them are mite treated if there is a need so that is not a factor.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

There is no significant difference in large cell vs small cell bees foraging distance. There is however a link between wing size and foraging distance and there is a link between background genetics and foraging distance. Pure A. M. M. have been noted foraging at distances twice as far as comparable colonies of Italian stock under the same conditions. Also, bees from a desert environment tend to forage further, i.e. A.M. Saharensis and A.M. Jementica tend to forage at greater distances. Saharensis wing size is notably larger than Ligustica. The largest recorded bee size known is for A. M. Major Nova from the Rif mountains in Morocco. Saharensis is from the other side of the Rif mountains surviving in oasis environments where some water is available.

Re crop produced, I have seen no difference at all between large cell and small cell bees. Small cell bees tend to build up very fast in early spring. If you are prepared for that buildup, it is an ideal time to make a split and start another colony.


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## cristianNiculae (Jul 2, 2013)

Michael Bush said:


> How about we put the bees on natural comb and forget the whole debate?...


:thumbsup:


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## peterloringborst (Jan 19, 2010)

Deleted by author


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## TalonRedding (Jul 19, 2013)

Oldtimer said:


> But that could be a little misleading because I didn't mention my natural cell hives. Honey production wise they make a lot less honey, because they have a huge number of drones.
> 
> In my case that suits me fine because I breed and sell bees, drones are good


Touché! It's the very reason I keep natural cell as well.


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