imperfect comb

My foundation-less beekeeping results in comb with a gentle wave across the frame where bees 1) merged distinct regions of top bar attached comb like a clothing zipper, or 2) transitioned comb construction between worker and drone sized cells.

On Two Bees in a Podcast Michael Smith spoke about imperfect comb.   Here are links to the topic of where bees created 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9-sided non-hexagonal cells:

• Imperfect comb construction reveals the architectural abilities of honeybees
• Stigmergy versus behavioral flexibility and planning in honeybee comb construction
  

 

 

Honey Comb Cell Size & Machine Vision

Here are my final results using natural comb, back lighting and the programming language SimpleCV.  The cropped image is from a frame which does not have foundation.  Presumably, this light colored wax was used to store honey.

If you see the hexagonal boundaries, then you know that the image is rotated - the bottom of the frame is found to your left.  In the book The Buzz about Bees, Jürgen Tautz describes how bees convert tube-like wax cells which resemble the shape of the bee body into a hexagonal wax form.  In the image, circular-ish tube-like cells are surrounded by hexagonals.

I colored coded the SimpleCV identified circular-ish cells - green are larger and blue are smaller. Part of the image is over exposed, so a few cells are not detected.  As you can see, like sized cells are found next to one another.  Also, cell size varies with the most likely between 5.1 and 5.2 mm.

Natural Cell Size & Machine Vision

I'm in the process of measuring natural cell size using a simplified version of machine vision OpenCV software - it's called SimpleCV.    Still, the SimpleCV learning curve is steep and I would not recommend SimpleCV to the non-programmer - it's not simple to create a robust workflow to measure natural cell size.    Don't attempt this programming journey without the book - Practical Computer Vision with SimpleCV -The Simple Way to Make Technology See.
 
Michael Bush has written on the subject of natural cell size and focused on measuring brood comb. I'm going to start my measurements with cells used for honey storage. Honey comb is not darkened. So, I'm able to light the cells from either the camera side or from behind the cells - I've decided to start with placing my light source behind the cells.  This honey comb was drawn without foundation. I'm using Medium Foundationless Frames from Kelly Beekeeping - select frame style F.

Here are a few photos of my setup and SimpleCV results so far.