> I question the idea that bees could build cells 17% smaller than
> they are. How would a bee fit inside a cell 4.3 mm wide to build it?
> The thorax of the European honey bee is about 4 mm.

I wonder the same thing.  In normal hives, there are bees of varying
size, but one would winder why they would make cells that tight.  I seem
to recall 4.3 cells having been the smallest cells reported in EHB
natural comb.  Natural comb can sag, however, and cells change shape, so
I don't know.

We must keep in mind that there is a range of 'normal' behaviour and 
there can be extremes and outliers as well as observation errors.

> Taber placed the maximum natural variation between cell sizes at
> 3.5%

I was looking at Bob's numbers and thinking that 17% seems unlikely --
on the small side at least.

> The idea that 5.2 is "large" is beyond me. Taber found natural cells
>  average 5.2 mm and concluded that standard foundation was too
> small.

I don't understand that.  Until recently, standard foundation has all
tended to be above 5.2 in North America -- AFAIK.

> He states: ... our figures do indicate that the foundation
> manufactured for the construction of new combs in hives does not have
> the correct dimensions. For example, Grout (1963) suggested 857 and
> 520 cells per dm2 as a standard for worker and drone comb,
> respectively. Our measurements, converted to square decimeters, were
>  813.8 and 540 respectively, that is, the worker brood cells
> suggested by Grout are smaller and the drone cells are larger than
> needed.

Those numbers are
857~=5.2,
520~=6.6,
814 ~=5.325,
540~=6.5

See http://www.honeybeeworld.com/misc/cellcount.htm

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