Greetings Everyone,

I have compiled some of the measurements obtained from my small cell bees
in a top bar hive experiment.

Drone sized cells comprised about 18 percent of the comb. Large cell size
made up about 60 percent of the comb and small cell size about 22 percent
overall.

Horizontally, some interesting patterns can be seen. The smaller cell
sizes generally increase in quantity toward the front of the hive and
larger cell sizes increase toward the rear of the hive. Drone comb was
generally drawn on the right side of the hive nearest the entrance.
Worker brood was generally drawn on the left side fatherest away from the
entrance.

Vertically, the larger cells were closest to the top bar and cell size
gradually decreased toward the bottom of the comb.

Toward the front of the hive about 40 percent of the cells are small cell
size with some individual combs almost half small cell. No small cell
sizes are found toward the rear of the hive.

Large cell sizes gradually increase from about 55 percent at the front to
almost 70 percent at the rear.

Drone sizes range from about 5 percent at the front to 30 percent at the
rear.

Small cell sizes are traded mostly for drone size and a few large cell
sizes toward the rear of the hive

It should be noted that these cell size divisions are really arbitrary as
the bees don’t actually construct one size cell and then switch to
another. The change is very gradual and progressive. Maybe these American
bees never did learn to use a metric ruler :>)

I have added a section describing the methods and tables with the results
at:

www.geocities.com/usbwragler

Look in "Confession" and then at the end of Obs 2.


Regards
Dennis

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