interesting perspective finman. Do you even see the posts JBM makes? or have you blocked him out? Because my post was a response to JBM, not to you.
As for learning from the mistakes of others, can you point at a study about the effects of small cell foundation and what it found? I can point to the only one relevant to your position. I found it relatively easy to get bees to accept and properly use small cell combs.
Foundation costs the same amount whether it is 5.4, 5.1, or 4.9 cell imprint. There is no price benefit involved in using a given size. Bees naturally build cells in a range of sizes from about 4.3 up to about 5.7 for workers. The average works out to about 5.1. The original reason for making foundation in 5.3 or 5.4 was because the resulting bees were larger and were thought to be able to carry more nectar. This was never fully proven, particularly with regard to carrying larger loads. I can see visible differences in the size of workers from large cell combs, but the funny thing is that small cell bees from 4.9 mm cells have the same size wings as larger bees from 5.4 mm cells. Can the larger bees truly carry larger loads?
The big hoopla about small cell was started by Dee Luzby when she determined that it was more nearly what bees build naturally and made claims that small cell bees are resistant to varroa. This was tested under fairly rigorous conditions by Berry a few years ago and shown that small cell has no measurable impact on varroa population in a hive. I decided to get off of treatments in 2005 and was able to do so by getting genetics that could handle varroa. At the time, I did not know if small cell would benefit or not so I also converted most of my bees to small cell at the same time. As I have previously stated, my bees survive just fine whether on 4.9 mm or regular 5.4 mm combs. I can't show any benefit in terms of mite resistance associated with small cell.
I have used 31.5 mm frames since 1977 and like the benefits. They cause a marked increase in colony buildup speed in spring. I can provide references if you would like to read about the effect. When I put bees on both small cell combs and narrow 31.5 mm frames, there was another boost in spring buildup. This gave two tools to manipulate the spring buildup cycle using natural spring pollen and nectar flows.
There was one significant side effect to the small cell narrow frames. Spring swarming was increased, mostly because the bees reach peak population 2 or 3 weeks before the main flow. To manage swarming, I pull a spring split from each large colony and use the increase either for my own colonies or to sell to other beekeepers. Swarming is also a strong genetic trait and one that I did not attempt to influence in the years since I stopped treating for varroa. I let the susceptible colonies die and increased the colony count each spring from the survivors.
Now go back to your bees and ask why you are using electric heaters and pollen patties? Is it not for the same reason that I am using small cell and narrow frames?
