Whatever size cell they are used to building is what size the bees will be.
That's the way I understand the term. But I don't think that's how the OPer meant it. But I'm not sure. Which is why I asked.Mark,
A regressed worker is a forager that due to swarm or other conditions within the hive has reverted back to house bee activities. This phenomena is seen in cutouts where the queen escapes, and the house bees are vacuumed up. The returning foragers out of necessity regress to nurse bee. It should have no bearing on the regressed bees stature, or that of a queen they raised.
Whatever the traditional or scientific definition is, every mention of the term "regressed" I read on this and other forums refers to cell size and physically smaller bees. Perhaps general usage is changing the definition.A regressed worker is a forager that due to swarm or other conditions within the hive has reverted back to house bee activities.
As unimaginable as you (and I) might find it, it is not uncommon for the small cell proponents to dredge up Lamarckian concepts to explain their 'theories'.This screams Lamarckian (or Stalinist Lysenko) fallacy.
Root described worker comb as '5 cells within the inch'. To me (and my math), that's 5.08 and smaller.Several times it has been suggested that we enlarge the race of honey - bees, by giving them larger cells; and some circumstances seem to indicate that something may be done in this direction, although I have little hope of any permanent enlargement in size, unless we combined with the idea of selecting the largest bees to propagate from, as given a few figures back. By making the cells smaller than ordinarily, we can get small bees with very little trouble; and I have seen a whole nucleus of bees so small is to be really laughable, just because the comb they were hatched from, was set at an angle so that one side was concave and the other convex. The small bees came from the concave side. Their light, active movements, as they sported in front of the hive, made them a pretty and amusing site for those fond of curiosities.
"Regression", as far as reducing the size of the bees goes, has nothing to do with Lamarckism or Lysenkoism. I have not seen a single person claim that going small-cell will alter the bee's genetic markup. While I did not attempt "regression" to go small-cell or natural cell, those who did described a self-replicating system that is more cultural in nature than genetic. They claim that the bee's natural behavior is to make cells for brood that is roughly the same size as their own, and that brood will grow, to a certain extent, to the size the cell it's in will allow it to. Thus by artificially giving bees large cells, we bred bees that would then naturally continue to draw up cells of that size, and that future generations will continue to maintain this size. Eggs transferred into different colonies, however, would not inherit this size, but will adapt to the "culture" of its new host population.Is there **any** evidence that "regression" is a biological state. This screams Lamarckian (or Stalinist Lysenko) fallacy. By "regression" I am referring to the popular internet meme that bees may be conditioned to grow into smaller sizes. This is "the heritability of acquired traits" that people should of learned in 7th grade was an alternative to Darwinian evolution proposed by Lamarck (Giraffes stretching their necks). The theory is complete bunkum.
As a member of a biological community that has to contend with folklore and disbelief about the Darwinian principles, I am uncomfortable when "regression" is presented as an established fact based solely on the anecdotes of Internet Gurus.
I do not believe that acquired traits are heritable in any meaningful way. I have more than a century of scientific trials to back me up.