Cell Sizes of Bee Foundation Explained
Whether you’re new to beekeeping or old as dirt, choosing the right cell size of bee foundation is an important decision in your journey to better hives.
Unfortunately, the matter is more muddy than clear. There are dozens of numbers on comb size floating around the internet, and whenever two or more decimal points get involved, people lose focus.
If you find yourself confused when it comes to cell sizes of bee foundation, you’re not alone. When our team at Premier Bee Products set foot building a better foundation, we found this simple concept to be extremely off-course throughout the bee industry.
Shockingly, we discovered the norm to have been awry for decades.
In this article, we’ll walk you through how cell size is measured, the pros and cons of the different sizes, and which foundation size you should incorporate in your hives.
Time to sort this mess!
How Cell Size is Measured
This seems like an unimportant detail in our discussion, but it’s far from it.
For years, foundation cell size has been measured improperly, leading to inaccurate information for beekeepers. Being that comb cells themselves are quite small, the standard method of measurement has been to measure a string of 10 cells and divide the measurement by 10.
Makes sense, right?
Perhaps you’ve already caught the error: A string of 10 cells includes 11 cell walls. Uh-oh!
How standard foundation is measured; inaccurate and imprecise.
That is not the true dimensions of a cell.
This is especially concerning when you consider that the thickness of cell walls differs from manufacturer to manufacturer — i.e., not all cell walls are made equal. A thicker cell wall in one foundation will falsely suggest that its cell size is larger than it actually is.
The sister problem to this erroneous method is that everyone in the bee industry uses it. It’s kind of like the rest of the globe urging the United States to adopt the metric system — It may make more practical sense, but we Americans are already stuck in our ways.
The cell measurement method used by Premier Bee Products in our development of Premier Foundation is not as easy to perform, but it’s more precise and much more accurate. Our method involves the use of high-resolution microscopes at 2.0x magnification to measure the interior cell diameter only. This way, cell walls are taken out of the equation and only the true cell dimensions are measured.
This becomes especially important in the case of Premier Foundation, whose cell walls are approximately 36% thinner than those of standard foundation. If we were to measure Premier Foundation with the standard method, its cell size would appear smaller in comparison to standard foundation. But this is not exactly the case. The true cell dimensions of Premier Foundation are more in line with those of standard foundation.
As a beekeeper, then, your first duty when analyzing cell size data is to ask, “How was this measurement achieved?”
The answer will predict the accuracy of the measurement and provide a baseline for comparing foundation cell sizes.
“...cell walls are taken out of the equation and only the true cell dimensions are measured.”
The Different Effects of Cell Sizes
For decades, scientists have known that different comb sizes will invariably lead to different outcomes in a colony.
Back in 1927, Belgian scientist Ursmar Baudoux theorized that larger comb cells would naturally produce larger bees. Larger bees, in turn, would be able to forage for longer distances and make more honey. As a result of Baudoux’s claims, European manufacturers began creating large-cell foundation for beekeepers.
The real-world evidence, however, did not seem to support Baudoux’s theory.
In fact, in 1995, scientists noticed that the slightly smaller Africanized bees had lower mite counts than their European counterpart. This observation led beekeepers to begin regressing their colonies as they sensed that the larger cells allowed mites more space and time to feed on their hosts.
This widespread impression has led to the present-day fixation on small-cell foundation amongst hobbyist beekeepers. Small-cell foundation, which by standard measurement methods measures 4.9 mm or less, theoretically regresses the size of the bees.
While anecdotal evidence will occasionally support small-cell foundation’s ability to inhibit Varroa, the scientific literature has not shown it to be effective.
The Optimal Cell Size
So, where does that leave a beekeeper to decide?
Large-cell foundation seems to invite more opportunity for Varroa infestation, while small-cell foundation creates smaller bees with possibly shorter foraging distances.
This may not surprise you, but the optimal cell size is the one produced by bees in nature. Honeybees have been building comb for longer than humans have been studying it, which means bees have been privileged with countless rounds of trial and error.
A core belief of ours at Premier Bee is that bees will naturally make what’s best for them. If we can get out of the way and not interrupt their intentions, both bees and beekeepers will be better off.
Thus, our story to a better foundation started by analyzing and measuring natural, top-bar-hive comb across the United States. This kind of comb is purely natural, with no preexisting pattern diverting the colony’s instincts.
Through our new measurement methods mentioned above with high-resolution microscopes, we determined the natural cell size to be 4.93 mm exactly.
But remember, this number includes the cell interior only. You may be tempted to think this number is close to small-cell foundation, but small-cell foundation’s 4.9 mm or smaller dimensions were derived from standard measurement methods — i.e., the inclusion of cell walls in the measurement.
Premier Foundation is not small-cell and it’s not standard-size; it’s true-to-nature cell size.
If you take nothing else away from this article, remember that simple fact. The cell size of Premier Foundation is exactly the size that bees build in nature, which is another reason why bees choose Premier Foundation over others.
If regression is a goal in your hive through the use of small-cell foundation, your bees will likely regress in size if you incorporate small-cell foundation following the use of standard-size foundation. But over time, your bees may be smaller than nature intended with cell sizes that are smaller than those of natural comb.
By using Premier Foundation or any other foundation with true-to-nature cell dimensions, your bees will be given a natural, optimal pattern upon which to draw their comb.
Sources