[Acebird]

I know it is customary to measure cells "center to center" but with brood comb it has thicker walls so the inscribed hexagon is smaller for brood comb when drawn on the same foundation. How much smaller will it get, if any, if it is used year after year?

 

[Acebird]

I have never measured cell size, but I am under the impression that the common way of measuring is to measure the distance across a set of cells, say 10, outside to outside and divide by the number of cells measured.

If measuring bore, wouldn't one use a set of inside calipers?

Mark, to be 100% accurate it would be from the outside edge of the first cell to the inside edge of the last cell and then divide by the number of cells. To find the bore dia.~ measure the thickness of the wall using outside calipers and subtract.

 

[Acebird]

Makes sense. I almost wrote it that way, but didn't.

I don't understand the bore measuring you describe. Why wouldn't you simply measure the inside dimension and not have to do any math to determine bore size?

Well, why do you measure 10 cells across and then divide by 10 for a center to center dimension? To get an average. Otherwise you could be measuring a slightly smaller or larger cell than what is representative of the whole comb.

 

[Acebird]

I guess if I were measuring the average bore size of worker cells, I would measure the inside dimension, the bore, of a number of cells, at least ten and then do the math to attain the average.
Is bore an important measure or am I just muddying the waters in my mind?

From what I see most people ignore it but it doesn't make sense to me.

Mark, have you actually tried to measure a wax cell with an inside caliper? In most cases it is easier to measure OD and far more accurate. A machinist would use pin gages. Find the one that fits the hole and then measure the pin to make sure it is marked correctly. The eye can see better measuring outside and you can feel the caliper better with outside measurements.

Yeah, you are probably muddying the waters in your mind. You got water on the brain?

 

[Acebird]

>Am not sure what that means.

It means the bees have some threshold they won't go below. When the cocoons have built up to the point that the size is below that threshold they will chew out the cocoons. But not before that. So with larger cells that is a lot more cocoons.

So if a hive is left on their own as in feral the bees are continually shrinking until they get to that threshold.