Morse and Seeley wrote in 1976:

We found drone comb on the edges of brood nests, sometimes as a peripheral
band on an inner comb, other times as an entire outer comb. The grouping of
drone cells into drone comb probably simplifies the honey bee's sex
determination system. This arrangement frees queens from constantly
switching between laying fertilized and unfertilized eggs.

Table III shows the amount of drone comb in eight nests. We counted as drone
cells only the brood nest cells with drone cell dimensions. Thus we excluded
from our count the large cells resembling drone cells in the upper, honey
storage region of the nest. This table shows relative uniformity in the
proportion of drone comb among eight nests. Whereas the absolute amount of
drone comb varied widely (SD 1,240 cm 2) about the mean area of 3,880 cm~,
the percentage of the total comb area devoted to drone comb varied
relatively little (SD 3 %) about the mean of 17 %.

Although the pattern of comb use varied among nests, a general trend in comb
area allocation emerged : 55 % food, 25 % brood and 20 % empty. This
predominant devotion of comb to food storage underscores the honey bee's
need to store large quantities of honey to survive temperate zone winters.

* * *

Average cell dia. (wall-wall) x depth (mm • mm) :
worker cell . . . . . .5.2 x 11.0
drone cell . . . . . . .6.2 x 12.5

From:
THE NEST OF THE HONEY BEE
By T. D. SEELEY and R. A. MORSE
lnsectes Sociaux, Paris.
1976. Tome 23, n ~ 4, pp. 495-512.

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