What is the philosophy behind small cell? As I understood it, the lifecycle is altered (they emerge quicker, or before 'large cell' bees) which interferes with the mites lifecycle which prefers about a 21 day emergence schedule or something like that. I see noticeable differences between my two hives, one is small cell from plastic frames, the other is a mix of foundation and duragilt I believe. (I did not set them up initially). I can't really make any direct comparison at this point as the hives have not been treated the same but just looking at behavior, the small cell has more bees per unit of area which I think makes for a stronger hive in general.