[log in to unmask] wrote:
>Interesting.  Was the 5.2 mm worker comb from feral nests?

Yes, that's the whole point. Seeley and Morse wrote:

> The natural honey bee nest was studied in detail to better understand the honey bee's natural living conditions. To describe the nest site we made external observations on 39 nests in hollow trees. We collected and dissected 21 of these tree nests to describe the nest architecture. <

[log in to unmask] wrote:
> If you take an average you will come up with a single size. How does he quantify the variations that he encountered and does he attribute any cause to the variations ?

As far as variation goes, they described a great deal of variation in
the honey storage area but very little in the brood area. They give a
range for the depth of cells (worker comb being 21 to 24 mm thick, --
that's about .90 to .94 inches) but no range for the cell width. I
assume it varied but little and certainly less than .1 mm or I think
they would have mentioned that.

[log in to unmask] wrote:

> Well glad to see Seeley and Morse were seeing uniformity in the broodnest area after 3/4s of a century of upsizing

The notion that wild honey bee comb cell size is unnaturally large has
never been proven to my satisfaction. Wild honey bees instinctively
build the size that is correct for that species in that locale.

-- 
Peter L. Borst
Danby, NY  USA
42.35, -76.50

picasaweb.google.com/peterlborst

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