from Enjoy Beekeeping
Bees are bees – right? Well, not exactly. Have you heard the term “small cell bees”? Just the term itself “small cell bees” makes one wonder. How did the bees get small in the first place? If there are small cell bees, are there also large cell bees? Is one better than the other? Well you are in for a pleasant discovery as you read on. So this article serves two main purposes. (1) To educate you on what the term means and (2) to show you the definite advantage that one has over the other and why you should know more about small cell bees.
It all begins with foundation. Beekeepers often use sheets of wax or plastic that is coated with wax with the hexagons stamped on it as a guide to manipulate or guide our bees to build the cell sizes we want. Even if you have never kept bees yet, you’ve no doubt seen pictures of foundation in the beekeeping catalogs. And you’ve probably already noticed that worker bees emerge from one size cell, drones emerge from a cell that is larger than a worker, and finally the queens emerge from the largest cells that bees make. Since the drones have often been viewed as the enemy of production in bee colonies because they don’t forage nectar or pollen, clean house, or seem to contribute in any way to life inside the hive, for around 100 years beekeepers used foundation to steer the colony into drawing worker cells and avoiding letting the bees draw more drone cells. Sounds logical at first right? Now it does make you wonder how bees managed for thousands of years before we invented foundation with cells stamped on it? Thank goodness man came to their rescue! So that is when and where foundation was first introduced in beekeeping management.
As time went on, realizing that a beekeeper can manipulate the size of the bee based on the foundation cell size, the old notion that bigger must be better began to set in. Bigger worker bees can forage more nectar and pollen and make even more honey than the natural sized bee, right? So beekeepers increased the foundation size over time from 4.9mm to 5.4mm where most foundation is today. Unfortunately this assumption has not been correct. Raising bees on larger foundation did indeed create a larger bee by up to 30% – 50%. Sadly the productivity did not go up at all. In fact the larger bees have proven to be less productive and more prone to disease and mite problems as a result of being larger than what nature intended. Think of an average human being that nature has intended to be a certain size to be healthy and productive – now add 30% – 50% more body weight or mass. Most people that are carrying that much more weight are typically not more productive or healthy. In fact the closer we get to our ideal weight and body mass, the better we feel and the more energy we have and the less prone to illness we become. The same is true for the honeybee.
So from now on, anytime you hear the term “small cell bees”, think of them as natural sized bees as nature intended. This is the size of bees that you would find in the wild living in a forest where no man has never been before. If you climbed up a tree to find a honeybee colony, you would find these natural sized bees drawing natural sized worker comb and producing more natural sized bees, living happily ever after – all without our “help”.
Are there any advantages of having small cell bees? Yes! Just like us when we are close to our own ideal body size and weight, bees are in fact healthier too. Probably one of the biggest advantages is the control of mites. Two types of mites can destroy a colony in short order. One is the trachea mite, which as you probably guessed by the name attacks the bees in their trachea. Well, guess what? A trachea mite can not fit down the trachea of a small cell bee, only the ones that are raised on larger cell size foundation. That’s a winner for you and your bees. Just letting them be the size nature intended eliminates one pest completely from becoming a concern for treatment in the first place. The second mite of serious concern is the varrora mite. This mite attacks bees when they are in the pupa stage of development inside their cells. The longer the bee is inside the cell the longer varrora have to multiply exponentially. Every day they can literally double in numbers, so they can be a serious threat. Small cell bees generally emerge 2 days sooner than large cell bees, which does not sound like long, but even just 8 hours difference in capping time and a couple days less time before emergence is HUGE when it comes to controlling the life cycle of the varrora mite. So many small cell beekeepers do not even need treat for varorra because the bees natural cell size and emergence time keeps the mite under control. This is what organic style or integrated pest management system is all about. You eliminate the need to treat with medications or chemicals and you still get to keep your bees.
So when you shop for bees, ask if they are small cell bees. Most of the organic bee produces are using small cell foundation for their colonies, or they simply let the bees draw their own comb without even giving them foundation. Many top bar beekeepers seek out these particular bees for their hives. And the good news is you can have small cell bees in a top bar hive, a Langstroth hive, or any other kind of hive for that matter. And if you have used the larger cell size foundation for your bees, you can actually regress your bees back to their natural size in a few generations by introducing them to smaller cell foundation and stepping them down gradually from 5.4mm to 5.1mm and finally to 4.9mm.
I have only raised my bee colonies using small cell 4.9m wax foundation, or let the bees draw their own comb on frames. My mentors showed me these natural methods for which I’m grateful and I hope that I’ve passed along something helpful to all of you fellow beekeepers! My goal is to show new beekeepers the natural approach to keeping bees, and to educate them so that they can enjoy beekeeping without using dangerous chemical treatments or meds on their bees.
I will have a limited supply of package bees and nucs for spring this year. I’m just a small scale beekeeper, however so I do NOT ship out bees at this time. Everything is local pick up only. However if you are in the North Georgia area and would like to place an order, please feel free to contact me. For more information on this subject, check out Enjoy Beekeeping on Facebook, or feel free to e-mail me at enjoybeekeeping [at] gmail or visit my site www.enjoybeekeeping.com.
37 Comments
My GOODNESS that was interesting. thank you.
Question: the articles states that you can regress your bees using smaller and smaller cell foundation. If I let them draw their own comb, will the regress on their own?
We are planning to start beekeeping 2016, allowing us time to get ready for the bees. This has been great news to learn BEFORE we jump into it. Thank you so much, and wish you were able to ship to AL.
Do you have any facts to back this up? I work with the USDA bee lab and they told me they have no evidence of this. I do know of several beekeepers both back yard and one commercial beekeeper that feels this is correct but I’d like factual data.
Maybe its about time the USDA bee lab started doing a little research on their own. Or should I say on the tax payers dime.
“Do you have any facts to back this up? I work with the USDA bee lab and they told me they have no evidence of this. I do know of several beekeepers both back yard and one commercial beekeeper that feels this is correct but I’d like factual data.”
The proof is in the pudding. I regressed my bees over 5 years ago after losing most of my bees to mites; I had two hives left out of 16. Thanks to the advice of Mr. Bush of Bush Farms (google him) I have not used any chemicals in my hives since and they have absolutely flourished; I have 13 healthy and completely chemical free hives at present. IMHO, the powers that be do not want this info out there as it would crush an entire industry built around the problem we created by thinking we could improve on God’s design. Do you really think the USDA would take responsibility for the demise of the miticide manufacturers? No, they will go with the status quo to keep their jobs.
Thanks alot!
Well that explains it. I’ve been keeping only feral hives, that I remove from houses) and letting them produce their own comb for many years. Most of the other ‘keepers in my club don’t understand why I NEVER have to deal with mites, wax moths, or hive beetles. Not only are the bees smaller but the ferals tend to be more aggressive and don’t hesitate to attack infiltrators, yet they are not much more difficult to work. I also seldom give them more than two inches for an entrance which helps them better defend the hive.
Rattler, keep up the good work, you know what your talking about. Newbeeks pay attention Rattler is a go-to bee keeper. I also use small cell wax and I plain the end boards of the frames down to 11/4 inchs so as to get 11 frames in the brood box only. I still get a small amount SHB but they are never a problem.
Thanks
Sir, you addressed comb size for the reproduction of your brood. Could the larger cells still be used in the honey production? This is my first year keeping bees, I have 2 deeps, and 3 mediums. My plan was to put the queen excluder between the deeps and mediums. In your opinion, would the bees be better served with uniform comb size threw out thehive or would it not matter.
Thank you in advance for any help you might offer.
In theory you should be fine using the larger cell size foundation in the supers, it is my understanding that it only matters where brood is raised that you want to have the smaller cell size. There actually may be some (minor) benefit to using the larger cell foundation for the honey supers because less wax would need to be drawn on the same size frame, (more cells would require more wax.)
With that said, I don’t think I would bother with mixing foundation sizes. By standardizing on one cell size foundation, you don’t need to worry about accidentally mixing frames up.
You may be thinking, how would I mix up deep and super frames. Well, some people like me use supers for the brood chamber (3 supers vs 2 deeps) because the boxes are lighter to handle when working the bees.
Another reason is that some people also place one super frame in a deep box and allow the bees to draw out natural (larger) drone comb in the extra space left below the super frame. This is a method of IPM compared to using dedicated drone comb frames which are more work in my opinion.
Hope I didn’t cause you more confusion.
Wouldn’t be a problem, just mark the top of the frames with S (for small), or L (for Large); that’s what I do because I often receive foundation from people getting rid of their bees, or if I find it cheap on Craigslist. You don’t need to use foundation on brood frames, just attach a 1/2 inch strip along the top inside the frame and let them produce their own cell size.
Please give us some citations on any viable studies (Not anecdotal) out there that small cell works.
Where does one get foundations for small bees? I got my hive kit from Dadant & they do not indicate what size the foundations are. I assume they follow standards of larger combs. Also, I am getting my bees soon, any advice on getting them to a healthier size (assuming they are large)? Thanks for the info, wish I had looked for it sooner!
If you didn’t order small cell foundation (5.1 or 4.9) I would assume you got the standard 5.4 cell foundation. I checked the Dadant site and I think you can only get the smaller cell foundation in pure wax foundation (I don’t think they offer DURAGILT or PLASTICELL foundation in any size but 5.4. I could be wrong or another supplier/mfg might offer it.)
Unless you ordered small cell bees, you need to step them down as mentioned. You don’t want to put 5.4 cell bees on 4.9 foundation.
‘varrora?’
My husband and i decided to build a top bar hive (it looks just like yours) just for the reasons you stated. When we told a beekeeper friend that we were getting our first bees and told him that we were using a top bar hive, he smugly said “oh, that’s only for backyard hobby beekeepers, not real beekeepers”! He said that since the bees have to draw their own comb, they will produce less honey. We quietly agreed with him and decided not to argue the fact that while his bees might produce more honey in a single year, our bees will be healthier and live longer, thus producing more honey in the long haul. And, because we will have healthier bees, our colony loss will also be less in the long run! We installed our bees about 6 weeks ago and already the bees have 8 strong combs and the queen has been quite busy because we also have a lot of brood. How much honey do we have? We don’t care right now. We won’t harvest this first year to allow our bees a better chance of establishing a strong and healthy hive. Our main objective for having bees is for the pollination of our fruit and nut orchard and our vegetable garden, to help the honey bees in general (we use non-GMO seeds and grow organic, and we live in the forest), the fun and entertainment (seriously!) and lastly for the honey and beeswax. Wish us luck, which we will need because we are complete newbies with this venture! We are adding another top bar hive next spring and eventually hope to have three hives – spread out over our 5 acres.
I have read a tremendous amount of information about small cell bees. I was told by an expert that there was no scientific proof to support your article. If you do have it, please give me that information. I have small bees.
The proof of using small cell comb is all around you if you look!
At the bottem of this page has refrance to Studies on Small Cell:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesnaturalcell.htm
Trial of HoneySuperCell® Small Cell Combs
http://scientificbeekeeping.com/trial-of-honeysupercell-small-cell-combs/
long time users of Small Cell Combs:
Don Kuchenmeister (Fatbeeman)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RDmhMqMIW8
Dee A. Lusby
http://www.beverlybees.com/dee-lusby-organic-beekeeper/
I’ve notice a lot of people going top bar, but my problem with that is wintering the bees. If you have your bees in a cold winter climate and do not get a warm enough temperatures to allow them to break cluster to get to the next comb then your bees can starve with honey only 1/2″ away. Top bar was made for Kenya where temperatures can soar and an elongated hive displaces the heat better. But it’s because of the displacement of heat that in winter bees lose that heat and is wasteful of honey and engery of the bees. But rather a warre hive on nature comb will do the same as small cells but will winter better than a top bar.
Top Bars date back to ancient Greece.
The current iterations of top bar design were developed in Canada, which is significantly colder than Africa. They have their names, Tanzanian and Kenyan, in the attempt to get the beekeepers of those areas to adopt those hive designs.
As a top bar hive beekeeper in NE Kansas USDA Zone 6a, I have more problems from summer heat than from winter cold.
side not most Russian hives are basically a take on a horizontal langstroth hive. Which works just like a top bar hive, and we all know how cold Russia gets.
I am just starting bee keeping. Can I install Large size bees in a hive that only has small cell frame?
Or do I have to purchase small cell Bees.?
No. As stated in the article:
” you can actually regress your bees back to their natural size in a few generations by introducing them to smaller cell foundation and stepping them down gradually from 5.4mm to 5.1mm and finally to 4.9mm.”
So you can do it, but it takes time and you need to do it in stages. You don’t want to force 5.4 bees onto 4.9 foundation.
This is a good topic to investigate, and several universities in the US have performed studies to see if small cell helps with varroa resistance. All their conclusions are that this is not found to be true. At a recent NC State Beekeeper Association meeting, Dr. Zachary Huang presented evidence where the opposite is true. They grafted workers into drone cell and most of the varroa females ended up outside the cocoon and died instead of being able to reproduce in the cell of the larvae and feed on it.
I have a lot of experience performing experiments, so I won’t write off that someone independent should perform the experiments several times before concluding small cell bees aren’t the answer to varroa mites. There are a lot of variables at play in a bee yard.
As with everything in life, we need to question the norm and challenge thought processes. Since the varroa destructor came form Asia, perhaps the answer lies in how the larger apis cerana deals with mites in the wild. Our world is on an evolutionary cycle and this is just one step in it’s evolution.
Thanks for writing this article!
This was info I did not know. Thank you.
I have a Langstroth and a Layens hive that are both foundationless. My bees don’t have mites and while small hive beetles were still a problem this past year I had fewer beetles than my neighboring beekeepers. I am so glad I ignored the scores of naysayers and went all natural/foundationless. I don’t care if there aren’t scientific studies to back up what I do, it’s working for me and many others.
Got a couple of questions? Makes a lot of sense to use small cell bees except for one thing. Don’t they still make drone cells larger than the others? Aren’t the drone cells the primary ones mites infest? if so, what is the benefit of using small cell bees?
Bee Comb and Our Republic
There is a lesson here for all of us. Let nature guide us in the right direction not us guiding nature to suit our purposes. The size of beehive cells is just one example and why I prefer foundationless frames.
Extrapolate that out to politics. – a bee hive is the Communist Utopia all the liberal democrats would love to recreate – everyone in the hive working together for a common good and each worker bee working selflessly without individuality or personal ambition other than to work for the good of the hive until death.
That works good and is right for a beehive but will fail fantastically in Communism/Socialism (sorry to tell you this Bernie Sanders) because people do not live in a collective hive – it’s not in our nature.
Freedom, Liberty, and our Representative form of government requires individuals to take responsibility for their actions and reap the gains of their ingenuity and individual genius or lack thereof. Personal responsibility is not meant to bee easy (pun intended) but it works spectacularly, just look at the USA in 240 short years.
True!
The only way this would work for humans is with a single ruler and forced slavery. Humans don’t do anything that doesn’t improve their odds of passing on genes, even seemingly selfless acts may influence others that you come from a great gene pool. Bees pass on their mother’s genes by protecting the hive at all costs.
Perhaps the lack of the “clone bees” or I would say worker reservist, contributes to the Total collapse of the colony. ???
What size drone brood cells should be used with small cell. I presume that bees with drone brood won’t swarm as much and with smaller drones would have fewer Varroa due to faster capping and emergence
Great article. I am new to beekeeping and had a hard time deciding between a top bar or Langstroth hive. After consideration, went with the top bar hive and after reading this artcle, am more than happy with the decision . Wonderful to read the info in this article… MAKES sense!
Gene, I am leaning very hard towards 4.9mm foundation in my next hive. Can you document (reference) the science behind the information you present in this article? I am trying to understand as much as I can, particularly concerning transitioning my bees to the smaller foundation. I’m reading numerous articles in this regard, but no one is referencing the research. Phil
Message*Thank you so much. I’m a biology teacher and soon to be hobbyist “beekeeper” – my Apimaye Ergo Plus Hive is due to arrive this coming Tuesday. In the process of buying wax foundation, this article helped tremendously, not only in helping me with my ordering – but, also with a lesson for my biology students for my college and AP Environmental Bio students. Well done! What prompted me into beekeeping was an old mailbox in my back yard that became a beehive and my growing relationship with them & the remarkable pollinating they did with my Japanese Plum Trees. Now I must try to get them to got into the new Apimaye hive – going to use Lemon Grass Oil. If you have any other ideas be glad to hear them. Thanks again.
I’m sad to say that there are misconceptions here. Several researchers found no correlation between the cell size and varroa (see the references in the referenced paper here). But that’s not the story. The story is that it’s not true that bee cells were smaller in the past and got bigger. Check out this paper
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3896/IBRA.1.53.3.01
Thanks for the information on small cell bees. I just started bee keeping.