# How many cells are there on one frame?



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

count them.


----------



## waynesgarden (Jan 3, 2009)

Like so much in life, it depends. Are the frames deep, medium, shallow or some other, less common size? What's the cell size? (My small-cell frames have quite a bit more cells than my hives drawn on the larger cell foundation.) What is the rough percentage of worker vs. drone cells?

Allan Dick has a chart for calculating cells per sq. inch on his website.

Hope you found this helpful.

Wayne


----------



## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

Count how many in a row accross the top and count how many in a row accross the side and multiply them together.


----------



## Me Beeing Me (May 27, 2011)

Wayne - this is helpful thanks. I will have to forgo the other methods that were suggested here - particularly Acebird's.


----------



## wcubed (Aug 24, 2008)

They are not squares, but hexagons. Be careful how you count. Try diagonal in one direction.
Walt


----------



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

It's been a while since I counted, but this is what I remember:

Cells on one deep frame of 5.4mm foundation 7000
Cells on one deep frame of 4.9mm foundation 8400

Cells on one medium frame of 5.4mm foundation 4620
Cells on one medium frame of 4.9mm foundation 5544


----------



## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

Standard deep foundation of 16.5 X 7.75 would yield about 6400 at 25/square inch and two sides. This is the number given in "Increase essentials". Larry Conner then goes on to suggest that the actual brood area is closer to about 4800. Also it is noteworthy that about 1600 nurse bees on average are found tending to brood frames. So a good frame of brood will have about 4800 workers that will emerge plus the 1600 nurse bees that came along for the ride. I have experienced huge variations on this theme but the rough estimates serve as a useful guideline. My foundation is just slightly larger than the size given in the book and would be closer to Michael's number at about 6800.


----------



## AramF (Sep 23, 2010)

Last time I did a rough approximation I measured the area of one cell and then divided the area of the foundation by the area of one cell. Then multiply by 2. I assumed circle with 5 mm diameter. May not be the best, but roughly close enough.


----------



## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

While the number of cells per frame are given above, there is a good discussion that can be had about the number of cells in a frame that are used for brood rearing. Typically the corners and a band at the top and bottom are unused. So given 7000 cells in a frame, roughly 5000 of them will be used for brood in the center of the brood nest while only a few hundred will be used per frame on the outside of the brood nest.

Another good discussion would be to figure out how many drone cells a colony needs to be healthy. Conventional wisdom is to put all worker size foundation in a colony. I've had much better results if 1/2 of one frame is for drone brood. A colony balances reproduction by having enough drone cells and will convert worker size cells to drone size if they don't have enough.

DarJones


----------



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Me Beeing Me said:


> Wayne - this is helpful thanks. I will have to forgo the other methods that were suggested here - particularly Acebird's.


Some where along the line you have to count. All these methods are based on counting. However I probably should have used a smiley to indicate some humor. What I thought was going to come out of this thread is what for? What do you plan on using the magic number for?


----------



## WV Bee Guy (May 10, 2011)

Acebird said:


> Some where along the line you have to count. All these methods are based on counting. However I probably should have used a smiley to indicate some humor. What I thought was going to come out of this thread is what for? What do you plan on using the magic number for?


It's in your signature - *KNOWLEDGE*


----------



## Me Beeing Me (May 27, 2011)

WV Bee Guy said:


> It's in your signature - *KNOWLEDGE*


Well said, WV


----------

