>I always wondered about and if it can be answered MB should be able to answer it, were is the proof they made bee's larger and is it scientific proof? , I just always wondered
It's well documented. There are multiple articles from the bee journals through the years of them enlarging comb and getting bigger bees. Many of these are posted on Beesource:
http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/celldata.htmFind ABC & XYZ of Bee Culture books and look under "Cell Size". There is much about enlarging bees etc.
Here's some quotes from them:
ABC & XYZ of Bee Culture 38th Edition Copyright 1980 page 134
"If the average beekeeper were asked how many cells, worker and drone comb, there were to the inch, he would undoubtedly answer five and four, respectively. Indeed some text books on bees carry that ratio. Approximately it is correct, enough for the bees, particularly the queen. The dimensions must be exact or there is a protest. In 1876 when A.I. Root, the original author of this book, built his first roll comb foundation mill, he had the die faces cut for five worker cells to the inch. While the bees built beautiful combs from this foundation, and the queen laid in the cells, yet, if given a chance they appeared to prefer their own natural comb not built from comb foundation. Suspecting the reason, Mr. Root then began measuring up many pieces of natural comb when he discovered that the initial cells, five to the inch, from his first machine were slightly too small. The result of his measurements of natural comb showed slightly over 19 worker cells to four inches linear measurement, or 4.83 cells to one inch."
Roughly this same information is in the 1974 version of ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture on page 136; the 1945 version on page 125; the 1877 version, on page 147 says:
"The best specimens of true worker-comb, generally contain 5 cells within the space of an inch, and therefore this measure has been adopted for the comb foundation."
This is followed in all but the 1877 version, by the way, with a section on "will larger cells develop a larger bee" and info on Baudoux's research on enlarging bees.
So let's do the math:
Five cells to an inch, the standard size for foundation in the 1800s and the commonly accepted measurement from that era, is five cells to 25.4mm which is ten cells to 50.8 mm. This is 3.2 mm smaller than standard foundation is now.
A.I. Root's measurement of 4.83 cells to an inch is 5.25 mm which is 1.5 mm smaller than standard foundation. Of course if you measure comb much you'll find a lot of variance in cell size, which makes it very difficult to say exactly what size natural comb is. But I have measured (and photographed) 4.7 mm comb from commercial Carniolans and I have photographs of comb from bees Pennsylvania that are 4.4mm. Typically there is a lot of variance with the core of the brood nest the smallest and the edges the largest. You can find a lot of comb from 4.8 mm to 5.2 mm with most of the 4.8 mm in the center and the 4.9 mm, 5.0 mm and 5.1 mm moving out from there and the 5.2 mm at the very edges of the brood nest. There is also variation by how you space the frames, or variation on how THEY space the combs. 38 mm (1 ½") will result in larger cells than 35 mm (1 3/8") which will be larger than 32 mm (1 ¼"). In naturally spaced comb the bees will sometimes crowd the combs down to 30 mm in places with 32 mm more common in just brood comb and 35mm more common where there is drone on the comb.