# The Nest Of The Honey Bee



## MichaelW (Jun 1, 2005)

I just read,

Seeley,T., Morse,R., The nest of the honey bee (<i>Apis mellifera</i> L.), Insectes Sociaux, 23, 4, 12/10/1976, Pages 495-512

It covered some topics often discussed here.

here's the summary
Summary The natural honey bee nest was studied in detail to better understand the honey bee's natural living conditions. To describe the nest site we made external observations on 39 nests in hollow trees. We collected and dissected 21 of these tree nests to describe the nest architecture. No one tree genus strongly predominates among bee trees. Nest cavities are vertically elongate and approximately cylindrical. Most are 30 to 60 liters in volume and at the base of trees. Nest entrances tend to be small, 10 to 40 cm2, and at the nest bottom. Rough bark outside the entrance is often smoothed by the bees. Inside the nest, a thin layer of hardened plant resins (propolis) coats the cavity walls. Combs are fastened to the walls along their tops and sides, but bees leave small passageways along the comb edges. The basic nest organization is honey storage above, brood nest below, and pollen storage in between. Associated with this arrangement are differences in comb structure. Compared to combs used for honey storage, combs of the brood nest are generally darker and more uniform in width and in cell form. Drone comb is located on the brood nest's periphery. Comparisons amongApis nests indicate the advanced characters inApis mellifera nests arose in response toApis mellifera's adoption of tree cavities for nest sites.

from http://www.springerlink.com/content/kn41440127101316/

Some topics of interest are;

* "....the total comb area devoted to drone comb varied relatively little (SD 3%) about the mean of 17%"

* Average cell dia. (wall-wall X depth)(mm X mm)
worker 5.2 X 11.0
Drone 6.2 X 12.5

* "We found drone comb on the edges of brood nests, sometimes as a peripheral ban on an inner comb, other times as an entire outer comb"

- note: Michael Bush says to move your drone comb to the outer edges in foundationless hives.

* 3 kinds of comb found: brood, drone, honey storage. 
-note: I thought of the "honey storage" comb in my foundationless hives as drone comb that they just kept filling with honey and expanding. In the study they deferentiate between honey storage and drone comb. This makes since, they are different. Here are the differences
http://web.utk.edu/~wu4you/My%204%20Acres/beekeeping/BroodHoneyCombTable.gif

*worker comb width 21-24mm wide, drone comb 25-29mmm wide

* They provide a nice diagram of a typical bee tree. It goes well with Walt Wright's diagrams.
http://web.utk.edu/~wu4you/My%204%20Acres/beekeeping/BeeNestDiagram.jpg

*describe "washboarding" at entrance as chewing/smoothing out bark and filling cracks with propolis

BARRY - I think this article would be a good addition to your section on "historical data on cell sizes".


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## MichaelW (Jun 1, 2005)

And if you are considering culling your drone comb in your foundationless hives, and then place more EMPTY frames in there, consider that:

Stephen C. PRATT*
in
Collective control of the timing and type of comb
construction by honey bees (Apis mellifera)
says

"Other experiments show that
these proportions (of drone comb vs. worker) result from active regulation
of construction effort: colonies provided
exclusively with worker comb build significantly
more drone comb than colonies amply
supplied with drone comb (Free, 1967; Free
and Williams, 1975; Pratt, 1998b)."

Free J.B. (1967) The production of drone comb by
honeybee colonies, J. Apic. Res. 6, 2936.

Free J.B., Williams I.H. (1975) Factors determining the rearing and rejection of drones by the honeybee colony, Anim. Behav. 23, 650675.

Pratt S.C. (1998b) Decentralized control of drone
comb construction in honey bee colonies, Behav.
Ecol. Sociobiol. 42, 193205.

Thats alot of evidence that says drone comb construction is proportioned at a ratio!

@ 17% drone comb,
In a 3 medium 10 frame hive thats 5.1 frames of drone comb
In a 10 frame double deep thats 3.4 frames
Basically, thats 1.7 frames per 10 frame box of any size.
Or, for any 8 frame box 1.36 drone comb frames.
Organized 'naturally' on the outside edges.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I wonder what percent of these were recent escapees (1st regression). The cell sizes are pretty much what I would expect on a first regression. I would be curious to know the spread of worker cell sizes and particularly what the size is at the core.


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## MichaelW (Jun 1, 2005)

I don't read too much into the 5.2mm measurement as to what it really means. There are too many unknown variables.

I too would have liked to see specific numbers on the measurements, but this study was done in the mid 70's and there probably wasn't a great deal of thought on cell size at the time.


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## MichaelW (Jun 1, 2005)

I now have a PDF version at 2.08MB if anyone wants to take a look.


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