> As far as one can gather, the large cell experiments of the 1920-1930 era were directed towards producing larger bees; larger cells for the storage of honey apparently went begging. Some 50 years later the bait was taken again by Hepburn (1982). On the basis of optimisationstudies of comb geometry, he proposed that large cells ought to be ideal for honey production. The fewer the number of cells per unit area, the larger the containers and the fewer the number of waxen walls needed to fashion them. ln subsequent field trials with the African honeybee, those combs drawn on beeswax foundation having 1022 cells dm had a honey to wax ratio of 27:1 while the large cell type of 493 cells dm had a ratio of 34:1; but, the latter contained significantly more wax dm-2 than did the former. This little experiment makes an ideal cautionary tale: in the postmortem it was found that although the larger cells were fewer per unit area, their walls were thicker - wall thickness, of course, had been held constant for ease of computation. 

Honeybees and wax: an experimental natural history; H. R. Hepburn; Springer-Verlag; 1986
             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm