Hi Dennis

A bit late in reply, I've not been online for three days...

 > There's another factor to be considered when evaluating most
 > historical measurement. Most beekeepers believed the concept
 > that bees draw out only a single worker cell size. Just how
 > did they find that perfect size cell? What criteria was used
 > to select some comb and reject others?

I reckon that the assumptions used back in 1880 would be similar to
those made more recently.

If you do measure individual cells, then you find variation in size. If
you find variation of a object within a context, it is common to use an
average of several items to derive a value that can be used to 'relate'
the size to other features.

What I have just described is how I came to apply particular numbers to
cells... I think that the measuring capabilities of 1880 were of similar
accuracy to the vernier calipers that I use today, and so I make the
assumption that the same sort of assumptions were made by those that did
the early measurements.

I do not think that the 'belief of most beekeepers' would impinge on
anyone actually taking the trouble to make measurements.

To give a better 'label' to a cell size it should be stated in terms of
the range of the variation. The centre point of the standard deviation
would make a good choice for a single figure approximation.

The number of cells and method of measuring would need to be specified
as well as the region of comb and it's relationship to the centre (of
the nest and the standard deviation).

It would not surprise me if the figures produced by simple averaging
done today were similar to the centres of ranges that are measured today.

If that is true then we can use the old figures quite happily, if
however there are differences between range centres and averages, then
the ratio of these modern differences could be applied to the figures
from the 1880s to give a 'corrected' value.

I hate to use the word 'corrected' in the above sentence, because it
implies that they were 'wrong' back in 1880 and we are 'right' in 2005,
but I could not find a better word :-)


Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net
Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable)

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