This article investigates smallest branch-and-bound trees and their computation. We first revisit the notion of hiding sets to deduce lower bounds on the size of branch-and-bound trees for certain binary programs, using both variable disjunctions and general disjunctions. We then provide exponential lower bounds for variable disjunctions by a disjoint composition of smaller binary programs. Moreover, we investigate the complexity of finding small branch-and-bound trees using variable disjunctions: We show that it is not possible to approximate the size of a smallest branch-and-bound tree within a factor of 215n\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\smash {2^{\\frac{1}{5}n}}$$\\end{document} in time O(2δn)\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$O(2^{\\delta n})$$\\end{document} with δ<15\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\delta <\ frac{1}{5}$$\\end{document}, unless the strong exponential time hypothesis fails. Similarly, for any ε>0\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\varepsilon > 0$$\\end{document}, no polynomial time 2(12-ε)n\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\smash {2^{(\\frac{1}{2} - \\varepsilon )n}}$$\\end{document}-approximation is possible, unless P=NP\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\ ext {P} = \ ext {NP} $$\\end{document}. We also show that computing the size of a smallest branch-and-bound tree exactly is #P\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$${\\#P} $$\\end{document}-hard. Similar results hold for estimating the size of the tree produced by branching rules like most-infeasible branching. Finally, we discuss that finding small branch-and-bound trees generalizes finding short treelike resolution refutations, and thus non-automatizability results transfer from this setting.