GB1561745A

GB1561745A - Bee combs

Info

Publication number: GB1561745A
Application number: GB3545376A
Authority: GB
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 1975-09-05
Filing date: 1976-08-26
Publication date: 1980-02-27
Also published as: AT365036B; MX144548A; IT1065362B; AR210897A1; ATA656276A; RO75274A; FR2322537B3; ES451203A1; JPS5234282A; DE2539494A1; FR2322537A1; GR59828B; BR7605765A; PL101643B1

Description

(54) IMPROVEMENTS IN AND RELATING TO BEE COMBS (71) I, MATTHIAS SCHMIDT, a citizen of the Federal German Republic, of 7103 Schwaigern, Industriegebiet, Steinhaldenweg 21, Federal German Republic, do hereby declare the invention, for which I pray that a patent may be granted to me, and the method by which it is to be performed, to be particularly described in and by the following statement: This invention refers to bee combs made of synthetic plastics material, which are provided with cells on both sides of a centre wall, to bee comb plate-like structures of plastics material from which corresponding individual bee combs are obtained, e.g.

cut-out, and to a method for improving the living conditions of bees and for breeding bees with larger body dimensions compared with normal bees.

Combs made of synthetic plastics material of the above mentioned type have already been proposed, in which the height of the reduced cell walls of the individual cells is about 1/3 to 1/2 of the full height of the cell walls (12,5 mm), the cells provided on both sides of the centre wall being completely and unitarily made of plastics material by injection moulding, the cell walls being conically tapered, and the bottom of the individual cells being formed as a depression of greater depth in the centre than the depth of its adjacent walls.

It is already known that bee combs can be made of synthetic plastics material by injection moulding (German Patent 895.993): however, said earlier proposal deals with cell walls of full height of the cells being arranged only on one side of a wall and not on both sides of the centre wall.

Furthermore, the technique is known of making artificial honey combs, in which the cell walls are of reduced height (British Patent 1.019.856); said known honey combs are artificial honeycombs made of wax or waxlike material. however, are not honeycombs made of plastics material by injection moulding.

The technique is also known of increasing the depression of the floor of the cells from the lateral walls to the centre (German Patent 44 402); however, in this known proposal such depressions are made only on one side of the comb and the walls merely have the height of about 1 mm so that they do not form a honeycomb but the structure is practically a centre wall. Such a centre wall made of synthetic plastics material, however, is in practice useless as a comb, because the bees do not build on said base of cell walls of 1 mm height.

All bee combs, which have been known up to now made of wax, artificial wax, synthetic plastics material or any other material have in common that the distance between opposite walls of a wall is about 5,3 mm. Furthermore, all combs made of synthetic plastics material, which have been known up to now have in common that they have been useless in practice so that said combs have not been developed beyond the experimental stage.

This invention is based on fundamental new knowledge in the field of bee keeping: Up to now the experts have been of the opinion that the queen bee has determined in which cells the fertilized eggs and in which cells the non-fertilized eggs have been laid. From the fertilized eggs the worker bees develop, whereas from the nonfertilized eggs the drones develop. The non-fertilized eggs are laid in larger cells, which means cells with larger diameter, namely in the drone cells, which have a distance of 6, 7 mm between opposite cell walls, whereas the fertilized eggs are laid in the normal cells which have a distance of 5,3 mm between opposite cell walls.

The invention has found out that contrary to previously held opinion the worker bees determine in which cells the queen bee has to lay fertilized eggs and in which cells she has to lay non-fertilized eggs. This is especially striking at tirnes of swarming. As a result of this knowledge the inventor has found out that the queen bee would also be prepared to lay fertilized eggs in cells of larger distance between opposite cell walls.

It is an object of this invention to provide bee combs of synthetic plastics material, which guarantee a higher honey output and which lead to larger maggots, which will develop into bees, and which combs guarantee an optimum feeding of the maggots by better positioning of the feeding juice. In this way optimum conditions for the growing bees are to be obtained so that finally larger and more efficient bees will develop.

Furthermore, it is an object of this invention to provide a comb plate made of synthetic plastics material, from which corresponding combs can be separated or cut out.

According to this invention, there is provided a bee comb made of synthetic plastics material with cells arranged on both sides of a centre wall, which comb is completely and unitarily made of synthetic plastic material by injection moulding, and the depth of the floor of said cells increases from the lateral walls to the centre, wherein the cells have a distance between opposite cell walls 8 - 23 No larger (corresponding to a distance of 5,7 to 6,5 mm) than normal cells (corresponding to a distance of about 5,3 mm). The cell walls and the cell floor may be partly covered with very small particles of bees wax.

Furthermore, according to this invention a comb plate made of synthetic plastics material is provided from which several combs of the above described type can be obtained, e.g. cut out. Said combs are then inserted in already available or specially made comb frames, which are preferably made of wood. It is advantageous with such combs made from plates in the size of e.g.

660 mm x 880 mm to restrict the height of the cell walls to 3.5 to 6 mm, because then it is by far easier to produce and to clean said combs.

Furthermore, it is very simple to produce said comb plates in one piece by injection moulding and to separate therefrom combs of any dimension, generally of standard sizes; this is very important, because the dimensions for combs are not identical all over the world, but rather there are different dimensions for combs in various countries. Up to now it was necessary to use tools corresponding to the varying dimensions and sizes of combs. whereas by using comb plates according to this invention it is possible to cut out any dimensions of combs from said plates.

According to the invention, the cells of the bee comb are made with a distance between opposite cell walls of at least 5,7 mm (contrary to a distance of about 5,3 mm, which has been used up to now). Thus, the maggots, from which the bees develop, can grow larger within the cells and will become more resistant so that with such bees a higher honey output can be obtained.

Larger cells can only be obtained with a rigid and resistant material, namely synthetic plastics material however, not with wax or wax-like material, because when using larger cells of wax or wax-like material the bees would not build on such cells but would bite off the wax cell walls and build up the cells of the usual size.

It is known to the bee expert that natural cells with a larger distance between opposite cell walls are available to the queen, in which she lays the drones eggs. As a result of experiments, the inventor has found out that the queen lays worker eggs in cells with an enlarged distance between opposite cell walls of between about 5,7 and 6,5 mm (compared with the normal distance of 5,3 mm), and this knowledge has been made use of in this invention.

The young maggots, which have developed from the bees eggs are fed by the bees with bees milk, the so-called feeding juice. Said feeding juice is retained for a far longer time period within cells made of plastics material than within natural wax cells. Experiments have shown that the feeding juice in wax cells disappears within one day, presumably evaporates, whereas the same amount of feeding juice in corresponding cells made of synthetic plastics material is retained over a period of about 10 days. In this manner the growing bees in cells made of synthetic plastics material find a much better base for nutrition, will grow more resistant and thus live longer. The young maggots (age 1 - 3 days) in said cells made of synthetic plastics material are offered far more feeding juice than the young maggots in the cells of wax combs.

This is apparently based on the fact that the feeding juice evaporates far faster in wax cells than in cells of the plastics combs. By extensive experiments with marked bees, the invention has found that bees which have developed from combs of synthetic plastics material live about 30% longer than bees which have developed from wax combs. In practice, this means that a swarm of bees, which have been offered combs made of synthetic plastics material according to this invention, after their entire development have about twice as many worker bees as a swarm of bees on wax combs.

With older maggots which grow in cells made of synthetic plastics material it has been determined that they are larger than maggots of the same age which have grown in wax cells. In order to allow said maggots the space required for their development the bees are offered a comb of synthetic plastics material with cells of enlarged distance between opposite cell walls so that the bees can grow 30 to 40% larger and will live longer. The reason for the larger growing of the bees is the better nutrition with feeding juice, which is guaranteed by using combs according to this invention made of synthetic plastics material.

Better nutrition of the bees with the comb according to the invention is apparently based on the fact that within the comb of synthetic plastics material there are electrostatic charges, which affect the feeding juices in the above indicated manner. Such electrostatic charges, however, have to be attenuated on the plastics combs so that no bees eggs or maggots from said eggs will be killed.

Said attenuating of the electrostatic charges according to this invention is obtained by partly covering the cell walls and the cell floor with very fine particles made of bees wax. However, said wax particles must not form a continuous wax layer, because then the electrostatic charges or alternatively the connection between the feeding juice and the synthetic plastics material of the comb would be completely lost. This phenomenon is not completely understood as yet; however experiments clearly confirm it. The wax particles applied to the lateral walls and the floor of the cells furthermore have the advantage that the bees can use said wax particles if, as a result of bad weather periods, they are not in a position to produce wax themselves. Furthermore, the bees can use the wax particles for building up the cell walls with cells of synthetic plastics material of half the normal height of the cell walls. It was proved that using said wax particles is not disadvantageous for the above indicated phenomenon, because even if some of the wax particles are removed, sufficient wax particles are maintained on the plastics material.

Experiments have shown that it is advantageous to cover the interior walls of synthetic plastics cells with such wax particles in such a manner that e.g. about 50% of the surface is covered with wax particles and the approximate 50% remaining is the wax-free surface of the plastics material.

Applying said wax particles can be done e.g. by spraying the wax which must be bees wax so that the bees will accept the material; they can also be ground very finely and can be distributed over the comb. This method has proved to be very simple and advantageous. This procedure is carried out in such a manner that the wax particles themselves are cold and the plastics comb is heated so that the wax particles melt at the point of contact with the plastics surface; however, the particles themselves otherwise remain unchanged. The wax particles can be ground so finely that a sort of wax dust is obtained so that when said "wax dust" is distributed, it is guaranteed that the wax area is interrupted.

By the use of the present invention, bees can be bred which have a 30% higher life expectation and the body dimensions of which are about 30 - 40 % larger than bees which develop on wax combs. The bee swarm has about twice the number of worker bees. Furthermore, the honey output can be considerably increased with the inventive synthetic plastics comb, because the bees' own consumption of nectar and honey is about constant and the higher efficiency of larger and stronger bees nearly exclusively increases the harvest output.

The invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein: Figure 1 is a schematic view of a part section taken on line 1-1 of Figure 2, through a comb according to the invention, Figure 2 is a plan view of a comb according to Figure 1, and Figure 3 is a schematic view of a comb plate, from which individual combs are cut out.

Figure 1 is a part of a sectional view of a comb 1 made of plastics material with decreased height a of the cell walls and increased distance b between opposite walls of the cells. On both sides of the centre wall 2, cell walls 3, 4 are provided, which taper away from the centre wall 2. The floor 5 of each cell and the cells themselves are preferably made in hexagonal form; however, they can also be circular. The height of the cell walls 3, 4 is about 1/3 to 1/2 of the normal height of the cell walls (12,5 mm), which means 3,5 to 6 mm. The walls 3, 4 are built up by the bees up to the full height of 12,5 mm. The floor 5 of the cells is deeper towards the centre. Said recess can be conical, part-spherical or the like.

The distance b between two opposite cell walls is larger than the normal distance of 5,3 mm; in this embodiment it is 6 mm. The queen lays worker eggs in these larger cells from which eggs worker bees develop, which collect honey.

The interior surfaces of the cell walls 3, 4 and of the floor 5 are partly covered with very small particles 6 made of bees wax. The manner of arranging, or the pattern of, said wax particles on the plastics surface is not so important as the fact that the plastics surface is to be kept partly free so that the particles should be arranged distant from each other, e.g. in a dotted arrangement.

Bee combs of the above type are sepa rated, especially cut out, from a comb plate with the required dimensions, the dimensions e.g. being 660 x 880 mm. Such combs 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 are cut out of the plate 7, and because they are obtained without any frame are inserted into a usual frame made of wax or plastics material. In particular, it is advantageous to give the cell walls of such combs cut out of plates for reasons of production and cleaning a decreased height of about 3.5 to 6 mm.

WHAT I CLAIM IS: 1. A bee comb made of plastics material with cells arranged on both sides of a centre wall which comb is made completely and unitarily by injection moulding of plastics material, and the floor of which is continuously deepened from the lateral walls towards the centre, wherein the cells are provided with a distance between opposite cell walls 8 to 23% larger (5,7 to 6,5 mm) than said distance of normal cells (5,3 mm).

2. A bee comb according to claim 1, in which the cell walls and the cell floor are partly covered with very small particles made of bees wax, 3. A bee comb according to claim 2, in which the wax particles are provided substantially uniformly, e.g. in a dotted arrangement on the interior surfaces of the cells, whereby wax particles substantially alternate with free parts of the plastics surface.

4. A method for applying wax particles onto plastics combs according to any one of claims 1 to 3, in which the plastics combs are heated and cold, finely ground bees wax of dustlike consistency is sprayed over the heated comb.

5. A comb plate for making bees combs according to any one of claims 1 - 3 with a height of the cell walls of about 3.5 to 6 mm consisting of a plate the dimensions of which are a multiple of those of a plastics comb, so that individual bee combs for insertion in a bee comb frame may be cut out from said plate.

6. A method for producing bee combs made of plastics material with cells arranged on both sides of a centre wall, which are completely and unitarily made of plastics material by injection moulding and the floor of which is increasingly deepened from the lateral walls towards the centre, wherein the cells have a distance between opposite cell walls increased by about 8 to 23 % (5,7 - 6,5 mm) compared with the distance of normal cells (5,3 mm) and the cell walls and the cell floor are partly covered with very fine particles of bees wax, wherein the individual combs are separated with the required dimensions from a comb plate, preferably are cut out therefrom, and the separated combs are inserted individually in bee comb frames.

7. A method for improving the living conditions of bee maggots and for breeding bees with body dimensions which are larger than those of normal bees, by using a plastics comb according to any one of the claims 1 - 3, the queen being offered combs made of plastic material by injection moulding with a distance between opposite cell walls of 5,7 - 6,5 mm for laying fertilized eggs, the feeding juice being applied into recesses of the cell floor and the hatching of the maggots, the nutrition of the maggots and the growing of the maggots into bees takes place within said cells.

**WARNING** end of DESC field may overlap start of CLMS **.

Claims

**WARNING** start of CLMS field may overlap end of DESC **. rated, especially cut out, from a comb plate with the required dimensions, the dimensions e.g. being 660 x 880 mm. Such combs 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 are cut out of the plate 7, and because they are obtained without any frame are inserted into a usual frame made of wax or plastics material. In particular, it is advantageous to give the cell walls of such combs cut out of plates for reasons of production and cleaning a decreased height of about 3.5 to 6 mm. WHAT I CLAIM IS:

1. A bee comb made of plastics material with cells arranged on both sides of a centre wall which comb is made completely and unitarily by injection moulding of plastics material, and the floor of which is continuously deepened from the lateral walls towards the centre, wherein the cells are provided with a distance between opposite cell walls 8 to 23% larger (5,7 to 6,5 mm) than said distance of normal cells (5,3 mm).

2. A bee comb according to claim 1, in which the cell walls and the cell floor are partly covered with very small particles made of bees wax,

3. A bee comb according to claim 2, in which the wax particles are provided substantially uniformly, e.g. in a dotted arrangement on the interior surfaces of the cells, whereby wax particles substantially alternate with free parts of the plastics surface.