And too small bugs to carry heavy loads.
Your comment presumes something that is not correct. I was not able to source small cell foundation for the Dadant depth frames. My bees are now on 5.4 mm foundation drawn into combs. This will not be true next year, I've arranged for Dadant to make me some 5.1 mm foundation.
It is worth taking a few minutes to understand bee size and colony dynamics of the hives I am using. The frames are spaced at 31.5 mm center to center. This causes a change in winter cluster structure with a given cluster size covering about 20% to 30% more comb surface. With 35 mm combs, there is room for 3 layers of bees between combs. With 31.5 mm combs, there is only room for 1 or at most 2 layers of bees. Even if the bees pack themselves into empty cells, they still cover more comb surface!
What does this change about wintering? The bees are able to expand the brood nest more rapidly with the queen laying more eggs per brood cycle. The colony reaches peak population in about 8 weeks as compared to 10 to 12 weeks for combs using 35 or 38 mm spacing. Why is this important? First pollen is available here about the 10th of February. Fruit bloom starts about March 25th. By Mar 25th, a colony is near the end of the 2nd cycle of brood rearing whether on narrow or wide spaced frames, but since my combs are on narrow spacing, I have more total bees in the hive. My bees gather more nectar from fruit bloom as a direct result of having narrow frame spacing.
The end of the 3rd brood cycle is usually about 10 weeks after pollen becomes available. With narrow frame spacing, that is cut to 8 weeks. The first brood cycle starts in early February and peak strength occurs about April 10th which is 10 days before the main flow starts. This means my bees have lots of time to prepare for swarming with peak population of bees. I usually split each colony about the 25th of March which gives me 2 colonies going into the spring flow. This prevents swarming and increases the honey crop a bit. Each split gets about 3 frames of brood. The side with the old queen will build back up and produce a normal crop of honey.
What are the advantages of small cell foundation with the above frames? It increases the brood density so that the total number of bees in each brood cycle is more than in 5.4 combs. The effect is small, but useful with about 8 percent more cells in 5.1 combs than in 5.4. Would this be useful in your climate? I don't know, but it is a very useful combination for me.
