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. ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ******************************************************