Saturday, October 25, 2014

Cell Size

I have got a few pieces of feral comb from a hollow tree. Some comb was for brood and some for honey storage. The photo beneath shows a honey comb with extremely long cells :) Some cells are up to 35mm deep !!!

 I did not photograph the brood comb but the cell size is 5,3mm-5,4mm.
Cell size in my hives is 5,1mm in the brood. When it comes to small cell Im sure Africanized bees build small cell naturally but this might not be the case with European Honeybees. Its known in Sweden that Dark Nordic Bees build 5,1mm in the center of the brood nest.
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2 comments:

  1. Patrick SellmanOctober 25, 2014 at 11:28 AM

    The Nordic bees build different cellsize as the most bees. Probably the ferral bees you seen come from a swarm from an ordinary hive. It will take several generations and new comb for the bees to get their natural size and its diffrent. The bees are to big to build small size .

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    1. Dusko Bojic aka Che GuebuddhaOctober 25, 2014 at 1:39 PM

      Did you measure cell size in your Nordic bees? Your bees have built natural comb for 6 years it would be interesting to know the size. I hope to see you soon in Denmark :)

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