Hi Guys,

In my top bar hives, I create a beeswax ridge down the center of each top
bar. This ridge is produced by pouring hot beeswax into the notch of a
wooden mold. The ridge helps the bees orient their comb building down the
length of the top bar. This method works most of the time, but not all of
the time.

I wondered if I could produce a simple mold that would mimic the very first
part of the bees natural comb that attaches to the top bar. This mold would
still produce a central ridge, but the first hint of a cell wall would
project from the central ridge at a right angle to it. It would be much like
the wax remanent that is left when comb is cut off a top bar.

So, I went back to my top bar comb shots and began measuring the cell sizes
in the top row of cells next to the top bar.

Guess what? With a few exceptions, they all start out at just about the same
size! It didn't matter whether the comb was broodnest or storage comb. And
within a row or two, the bees would quickly expand or contract the cell size
to accomodate their comb building needs.

For my tbh, these cell sizes ranged from 5.0mm to 5.67mm. The vast majority
of measurements were in 5.63 to 5.67mm range. The average was 5.64mm.

Well, I couldn't stop there. I did the same thing with the small cell Lusbee
comb shots from Barry's top bar hive. And I observed the same construction
pattern in this comb although the numbers are different.

For Barry's tbh, these cell sizes ranged from 4.6mm to 5.83mm. The vast
majority of measurements were in the 5.3 to 5.5mm range. The average was 5.44mm.

What do you think?

Regards
Dennis

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