Brood Cell Size Ranges

[D. Murrell]

Hi Guys,

Erik, a Swedish biobeekeeper, sent me an email concerning brood cell size ranges. So, I decided to go back and measure some brood cell sizes on each comb.

I measured across ten cells, for the areas of largest and smallest cell sizes containing either worker or drone brood. Here's what I found:

Maximum Worker Cell Size
Range 5.12mm to 5.59mm
Average 5.33

Minimum Worker Cell Size
less than 4.6mm

Maximum Drone Cell Size
Range 5.87 to 7.29
Average 6.49

Minimum Drone Cell Size
Range 5.25 to 6.43
Average 5.93

Regards
Dennis

[size="1"][ December 10, 2005, 05:57 PM: Message edited by: B Wrangler ][/size]

[George Fergusson]

Dennis, roughly in what proportions were they?

[drobbins]

Dennis

I think there are several of us rookies here who are trying to reproduce some of the things you've done
it would be nice if we had some kind of "standard" for how you measure things
it's kindof a difficult problem, there's a gradient of cell size across the comb
there's been discussion of how to measure cell size, I think everyone's on the same page, but how to do it with respect to this gradient??

Thoughts?
Ideas?
Cunning Insights? [img]smile.gif[/img]

Dave

[size="1"][ December 10, 2005, 09:28 PM: Message edited by: drobbins ][/size]

[D. Murrell]

Hi George and Dave,

Here's a few more details:

I had photographed, at weekly intervals, the development of each comb in my test tbh. So, I went back to these photos and saw where workers and drones were raised. Then I took the scaled photo for each comb and found the largest cells where worker and drone brood were raised. I measured those cells.

Measurements were done in the classic method. Ten worker cells were measured across parallel cell walls. The measurements were mostly horizontal which negates some of the effects of the vertical gradient.

Only five drone cells were measured in smaller areas not wide enough to measure ten cells. And the direction of measurement varied according to the axis of the largest cells which were somewhat random.

Each comb provided only one data point. The average is a straight mathematical average of the total for the various combs, for whatever it's worth.

I didn't actually measure all cells to get a proportion. But rather only dealt with the maximum and minimum values.

Regards
Dennis

[size="1"][ December 11, 2005, 07:07 PM: Message edited by: B Wrangler ][/size]

[George Fergusson]

Thanks Dennis. I can appreciate that the drone comb was where you found it and that you didn't tabulate the numbers of all the cells [img]smile.gif[/img] I guess I was really more interested in the worker cells in the range 4.6 to 5.33 and what the proportion of the big ones to the small one was. More of the big ones? More of the small ones? About the same amounts? Also, in the "core" of the brood nest area- were you more likely to find the little ones or the big ones? Any remarks about the general distribution of the cells?

Am I asking this right?

George-

[D. Murrell]

Hi George,

I would refer you to the tables in "Small Cell Bees in My Tbh" at:

www.bwrangler.com/bee/scom.htm

I've got some percentages and remarks there.

The largest worker cells were at the top of the comb and the smallest at the bottom. Large areas of drone comb had the same tendacy, but most drone s were raised on small patches of drone sized cells.

I was surprised to find that, although there was plenty of drone cell sized comb within the broodnest and honey storage areas, only(barring a couple of small exceptions) those small patches inside the broodnest were used to actually rear drones. But workers were reared on worker sized cells throughout the hive, including the honey storage areas.

Regards
Dennis

[SIZE=1][ September 05, 2006, 11:47 AM: Message edited by: B Wrangler ][/SIZE]

[George Fergusson]

I'll head over there Dennis, thanks. I've been to your site before and enjoy it a lot.

I'm planning to fire up a TBH this coming year. Looking forward to it.

George-