Date: Dec 16 2000 09:29:09 EST
From: Erik Osterlund <honeybee@elgon.se>
Subject: Re: girls on small cells

No problems John

Started with 5.4-5.5. No drugs. the bees seem always to begin to draw 4.9,
whatever bees, but soon they split, sometimes when the side walls are up a bit. No, no big wall sides from beginning. But you know I have sort of gone a short cut with my bees, as unorthodoxically I have crossed some East African mountain bee Monticola into my bees. I did that in 1989. Surprisingly the result became less prone to swarm, maybe because the bees came from above the mountain rain forest where no absconding was common as daily afternoon rains and night frosts are common. Anyhow the bees I have are smaller today then bees around me. I think I have quickly overcome the enlarging through breeeding too, that our bees in Europe has undergone in 100 years. I have checked what my bees build freely, all of them born in 5.4-5.5, and the smallest they build on the same comb (it varies) is betweem 4.95 and 5.5. Thos that built 5.5 were bees from colonies with queens that had mated with yellow drones. Those that built the smallest
were those with the highest theoretically content of Monticola heritage. (By the way, these bees are no killers at all, really nice to work.)

Erik

>Good to hear of more success. How far north are you? What size
>comb did you start with? Here in England loads of beekeepers
>have been using 5.7mm for years, and my bees pull down to about
>5.2 if no foundation is given. Did your 4.9 foundation have sidewall
>stubs? Did you use any drugs in your hives this year?