Natural Cell Size

If you've read the blog for a while, you'll know that I was trying foundationless frames this year.  If you want to get caught up, go ahead and go back and read.  I'll wait.

...

Okay, you're back.

Well, I only have one comb to show you, because it just so happens that the hive it was in happened to die a few weeks ago.  No worries, this hive was a split from the hive the frame was previously in (still alive and well) and the frame certainly had nothing to do with it.

Here, you can see the frame and you can compare it to what it looked like soon after it was begun.

It's not too bad, though not perfect.  It had several queens made on it over the course of the year so that also makes it a little holey.

So, how did it turn out?  I measured the cell size on the frame in a number of places and different directions.  Here are the results:

Here's a 4.9mm section.

Here's a 5.1mm section.

Here's a 5.2mm section.

As you can see, there is natural variability.  However, the natural cell size is certainly on average below the smallest standard sized foundation available at 5.2mm.

In the future, I'm switching wholesale to plastic frames and foundationless frames, but until then I still have quite a bit of foundation to run through.