Subject: comb orientation

From: [email-masked] (Paul Oliphant)
Date: 3 Jan 1995 23:01:34 GMT

I'm a new beekeeping and have been trying to learn as much as possible
about honeybees. Well, I've got a question that seems rather obvious
yet, I have not been able to find any literature or anything on it.

The question is do honeybees prefer (in naturally) to orient their comb
in one of the two geometric orientations possible with the hexangle
cell? All foundation seems to be just one way. 

The two orientation are:     _       /\
                            / \     |  |
                            \_/  or  \/

I was under the impression that bees build comb only in one orientation
and was using this to help me orient some photographs. However, I though
I saw a picture of a wild colony of bees and I though I saw comb in BOTH
orientation in the same hive. Does anybody know or know of some research
that has been done on this?

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From: [email-masked] (MURRAY,JEFFREY P)
Date: 4 Jan 1995 13:15:32 -0500

>The two orientation are:     _       /\

   Ah, I think you are under a misconception here, but one that
I also shared for a long time. The cells produced by the bees are NOT
hexagonal. Rather, they are circular, and are packed up against
each other as tightly as possible. The result is a hexagonal pattern,
but the cells themselves are not hexagons.

   As an illustration, get a sheet of paper with a hole in it, and
use it to trace out a row of circles on a sheet of paper. The result
looks like the following:

     o o o o o o o o o o

   Now, if you go back and lay down a second line of circles under the
first SO THAT THEY PACK IN AS TIGHTLY AS POSSIBLE (this doesn't really
work well using ASCII type, but imagine the circles jammed up against each
other so that they almost touch), the second line will be offset from
the first by half. Thus, the pattern looks something like the
following:

     o o o o o o o o o o
      o o o o o o o o o o

   Continuing with the nextseveral lines yields:

     o o o o o o o o o o
      o o o o o o o o o o
     o o o o o o o o o o
      o o o o o o o o o o
     o o o o o o o o o o
      o o o o o o o o o o

    ...enough. You can see the hexagonal pattern that forms, even though
all I've done is pack circles together. In essence, this is all the 
bees are doing.

    Hope this helps.

    Jeeef

--
MURRAY,JEFFREY P
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp:	  ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!gtri!jeff.murray
Internet: [email-masked]
-- 
MURRAY,JEFFREY P
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp:	  ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!gtri!jeff.murray
Internet: [email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (MURRAY,JEFFREY P)
Date: 5 Jan 1995 09:26:01 -0500

>The two orientation are:     _       /\

   Well, after much thought, I realized that in my earlier post I
really didn't answer Paul's question. I still contend that the bee
cells are closer to circular than to truly hexagonal, but there ARE
two different orientations that a grid of circles can assume. And, as
shown roughly in Paul's illustration, the two are exact 30 degree
rotations of each other. Sorry 'bout that, Paul.  Maybe it'll teach me
to read questions more carefully before attempting to answer them.

   Back to the question, if I assume that the cell is a perfect
hexagon (albeit smoothed off to be closer to round), the two
orientations of the cell walls (which are the shared walls between any
two adjacent cells) can indeed look like either

       _
     /   \     or     / \
     \ _ /           |   |
                      \ /

   Now, for what I've seen, I'd say in my hives I've seen both
orientations, because although the bees make remarkably uniform
cells IN SIZE, the orientation of the cells w.r.t. each other
varies depending on other features in the hive. For instance, if
burr comb is built on the walls of the hive, I've seen the "grain"
of the pattern wobble significantly to accomodate the change from
flat surface to curved surface. Clearly on foundation, the bees will
tend to use the pattern that they are given to start with.

   With regard to the preference of orientation of the bees in the
wild, I can't say for sure. My guess is that there is no real
preference, but that the grain of the comb "morphs" from one
orientation to another regularly, and the initial orientation is
determined by the foundation used (for kept bees) or the way the first
row of cells is placed in the case of the wild. 

   If you've ever seen wild honeycomb, it does not conform to the
regular flat-sheeted form that we come to see in our hives; rather,
bridge and brace comb round off the comb at places and makes the
resulting U-shaped main sheets of comb look much more "organic" than
what we see in our hives. And as I stated before, it's the size of
the CELLS rather than their absolute orientation to each other that
seems to be the most regular.

   Hope this helps.

   Jeeef

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From: [email-masked] ("T. Alex. Shaw.")
Date: Sat, 7 Jan 1995 22:01:06 +0000

May I digress this discussion a little.  Still on the subject of orientation, 
but not the rotational orientation of the cells, can anyone say which way 
the bees would orientate their comb in a natural environment? 
 
I may align the comb in my National hives in one of two ways.   With the  
frames at a right angle to the entrance (called the `cold' way) or parallel 
with it (the `warm' way). 

	   Warm Way			  Cold Way   
	____________			____________ 
	|...........|			|  :  :  :  | 
	|...........|			|  :  :  :  | 
	|...........|			|  :  :  :  | 
	|__________ |			|__:__:__:__| 

	   Entrance			   Entrance 

I determine the way in which the bees build by arranging the frames as I  
choose but in nature which way would the bees build or do they have a  
preference? 
 
Someone who has experimented with keeping bees in skeps or has  
experience of removing bees from natural cavities may have formed an idea. 

-- 

                                                              Regards AleX.

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From: [email-masked] (Allen Dick 546-2588)
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 1995 17:44:39 GMT

: but not the rotational orientation of the cells, can anyone say which way 
: the bees would orientate their comb in a natural environment? 
:  
: I determine the way in which the bees build by arranging the frames as I  
: choose but in nature which way would the bees build or do they have a  
: preference? 

I've read that there is no particular favoured orientation.

*However*, the same source indicated that when a hive swarms, the swarm 
will orient the combs to the compass the same way that the parent hive 
was building combs.

I have not verified this -- and I turn hives around in yards with no 
apparent effects, not that I've really made any careful observations.

Interesting question!

-- 
W. Allen Dick, Beekeeper                      VE6CFK
Rural Route One, Swalwell,  Alberta  Canada  T0M 1Y0
Phone/Fax: 403 546 2588      Email: [email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Michael Moroney)
Date: Tue, 10 Jan 1995 03:21:47 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,

>From  a sample of one (a honeybee colony I removed from the rafters of my barn)
the warm way.

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From: Jennifer Finley <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Jan 1995 16:02:45 EST

Alex had asked whether bees show a preference in building their comb the
cold way (at right angles to the entrance) or the warm way (parallel
with the entrance)...

Here at Penn State, we've collected around a dozen or so feral tree
hives to use as various demostration pieces in our apiary and insect
museum.  All of the feral hives that I have ever seen all have the combs
aligned "the cold way" -- that is so that the bee spaces connect
directly with the entrance space.  It makes sense to me considering the
ease of entry and exit, especially during busy honey flows.  And even
though "the cold way" seems to us like it would be colder and draftier,
I'm sure the bees find it quite tolerable -- the heating and
airconditioning specialists that they are!

Do you notice any differences between your "warm way" hives and "cold
way" hives?  Once we had a tremendous amount of trouble (3 sets of bees
absconded) starting a large tree observation hive (the whole front is
plexiglass).  Weeks later, we tried again in a last ditch effort with a
fourth set of bees, even though our starter comb had been completely
eaten by wax moths.  These bees promptly moved in and began building
comb THE OPPOSITE WAY from what we had been encouraging with our stater
comb.  Since this hive has a three inch entrance tube in a very windy
location, WE thought the "warm way" combs would be better, but three
sets of bees told us we were wrong and the fourth set built comb the way
THEY wanted it -- the cold way!  After we stopped argueing with them,
the colony did very well!

Jennifer Finley Penn State Entomology

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From: [email-masked] (bill fernihough)
Date: 15 Jan 1995 05:27:29 GMT

> Jennifer Finley Penn State Entomology

Maybe you would like to put this in a more familiar way, does this suggest
we have the hive entrance on the width of the hive, or on the length.  I
ttend to use the length to provide more flight space, but maybe you'r
telling me something.