Biology of nesting

Abstract

This chapter is a comprehensive review of nesting and the nests of Asian honeybees. The peculiarities and constraints of open-nesting and cavity-nesting are considered as are the structures of the combs of the different species. Comb building approaches and problems are illustrated and compared with comb construction in mixed-species colonies, and unusual nests and man-made nesting sites are enumerated. Particular attention is devoted to the building materials, waxes and resins, and the chemical and physical properties of the waxes fully documented. Comparisons are given for the compound composition of derivatised comb waxes and their weighted frequency distributions for carbon chain length variation.