Anytime a plant has to put energy into flower and seed creation, it's taking energy from roots and leaves.
Cutting scapes early is just fine.

you have my permission to do whatever you want with your hosta ... including throwing blooming ones on the driveway ...

how about you do half one way.. and half the other.. and then you tell us what IF ANY result you can observe ...

ken

Not only are mine having scapes, They are already blooming. Many people on here don't like flowers,so they cut off the scapes every year. I leave mine,and I have never noticed any loss of vigorousness in my plants. But,as Ken says,do what you want. They are your hosta. Phil

I read an article somewhere (maybe Bob Solberg's newspaper)about this debate. He's of the belief that hostas producing scapes/flowers is part of the natural process of maturity and that cutting all of them off may tell the hosta to slow down a bit- quit growing so fast.
Personally, I used to cut all of them off because I din't like the look. Now I leave about 1/4 of the scapes intact.
Peggy

Do you think it is beneficial to remove flower scapes from very small hosta? I am planning to prune them off the plants I planted last fall.

Huh. I wouldn't have considered this myself, since the hummingbirds in my area LOVE my hosta flowers. I usually dead head other flowering plants to get MORE flowers so I guess I wouldn't think to get less...

Although really, I can't see how removing them could hurt the plant, but I doubt very much it helps it. I'm no horticulturist, but when I dead head my other plants so the produce more flowers (butterfly bush for instance, since it's not self cleaning), it doesn't seem to slow them down one bit. Hostas might be different, I know, but I see no growth difference between my butterfly bushes and my neighbors who doesn't dead head very often (so she has less blooms). Maybe it's there but so slight I can't notice it visually without specific measurements. Especially considering hostas aren't a rebloomer, I can't imagine it would really speed it's development by very much if it isn't expending resources on the flowers and seeds.

Is it OK to cut off scapes? Sure. Just clean your tools between plants if you have any possiblility (however remote) that there is HVX in your garden.

-Babka

I'm strongly with Mr. Solberg and Babka.

Thankfully the Hosta world is beginning to appreciate the flowers, along with the hummingbirds, bees, butterflies, moths and the Hostas themselves . . .

As mentioned in an earlier post by me, I accidentally discovered that the best time to clip the old scapes is Spring, not Fall. Due to a fairly extensive foot and ankle injury last fall, all Fall cleanup went undone. Then all winter I watched the Juncos and Chickadees harvest. YaY!

hh