Foundation matches natural cell size.
Saw What?
A. I. Root.
A.I. Root was a pioneer commercial foundation manufacture. He measured natural worker cell size. And he tested various cell sized foundation for bee acceptance. He produced foundation for over 100 years. And his company monitored natural comb and bee size during that time. These measurements are very interesting! They show that neither bees nor foundation were artificially enlarged.
A.I. Root says much about cell size. He discussed cell size before foundation was made. He also describes efforts to arrive at a workable foundation size. And European efforts at bee enlargement. I gathered the following points:
- A.I. had problems getting small cell size foundation accepted by bees before foundation was manufactured.
- There’s no more argument about diagonal versus square areas. He measured linearly across the cells.
- His first measurements pre-date any possibly enlarged bees by decades. His son’s later measurements confirmed the first measurements. No enlargement occurred after foundation was introduced.
- The 4.83 the Roots refer to, works out to about 5.21mm to 5.375mm cell size using the text’s table! That’s the foundation size range produced in the USA!
- Early foundation makers were not impressed with Europe’s larger bee as a better bee idea, or of the need for a larger foundation. They didn’t proceed along those lines. The cell size measurements taken by A.I. Root in the 1873 were later confirmed by Pritchard and H. H. Root. No artificially enlarged bees ever!
Read them for yourself and see!
These pages were scanned from the 1975 edition of the “ABC and XYZ of Beekeeping”. They aren’t included in later editions.
I’ve discovered that cell location is critical to understanding the meaning of cell size measurements. If a single measurement is taken that represents most of the worker brood cells in my top bar hive, it would we around 5.4mm. If that measurement was taken in the broodnest’s physical center, it is about 5.1mm. The same measurement taken in the core area is 4.9mm or less.
Page 134
Other Historical Literature
David Heaf kindly sent me a link to an English synopsis of some historical cell size measurements. What do you think? Have cell sizes been artificially enlarged?
Interpretation
Before getting involved with small cell, I’d spent little time reading historical beekeeping literature. I was more interested in the latest stuff.
But after experiencing the dramatic effects cell size had on colony health, and the bewilderment resulting from my top bar hive comb observations, I decided I’d better do a little historical reading for myself.
Nothings New
I’ve received some correspondence since posting my natural comb observations. And to my surprise there’s nothing new under the sun. A number of people, researchers included, have made the same observations about cell size, broodnest structure, and bee behavior that I’ve seen.
And it’s interesting to note that many of these observations were relegated to the dust bin as beekeeping, worldwide, has rushed into the more modern beekeeping way often ignoring basic bee biology.
