Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: beekeeper1756 on July 09, 2010, 09:53:26 PM

Title: Huge cell size for bees to store honey.
Post by: beekeeper1756 on July 09, 2010, 09:53:26 PM
I have seen several sides of my frames that the bees have drawn huge, wide-mouthed cells for honey storage.  They are bigger than drone cells.  At first I thought the bees were drawing out large sections of brood cells but then they stored honey it it instead.  I began to examine the cells closely and they appear to be bigger than drone cells.

Any opinions on this?
Title: Re: Huge cell size for bees to store honey.
Post by: fermentedhiker on July 09, 2010, 10:20:48 PM
That's normal for foundationless comb.  Honey only storage cells are typically the largest you will find in the hive.
Title: Re: Huge cell size for bees to store honey.
Post by: Scadsobees on July 10, 2010, 12:11:07 AM
My queen will pass through 3 boxes of capped honey to get up to one frame of that storage size cells to lay drone comb  :(

I'll just move those frames with brood on down to a different box when harvesting.
Title: Re: Huge cell size for bees to store honey.
Post by: Michael Bush on July 10, 2010, 04:12:43 AM
I have seen some that looked like they were building cups instead of cells... strange looking stuff...