In 1851 the Reverend Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth (1810-1895), a native of Philadelphia, discovered that if a space of 1 cm (3/8 inch) is left in the hive for the bees to move around in, the bees will neither build comb in the space nor cement it shut. This he called “bee space.”
In the years 1845-1850 Dr. Jan Dzierżon determined the correct distance needed to space the top bars movable frames in beehives. The distance between combs had been described as 1½ inches (38.1 mm) from the center of one top bar to the center of the next one. In this case, the distance between combs is 1/2 inch (12.7 mm), i.e. twice the minimal “bee space” of 1/4 an inch (6.35 mm). This setup had been established for the brood chamber, as for honey storage the comb distance can be different.
In 1848 Jan Dzierzon introduced grooves into the hive’s side walls to replace the strips of wood that the top bars had earlier been hung from.[2] The grooves were 8 x 8 mm – an average between 1/4 and 3/8 of an inch. Currently, 3/8 of an inch (6.35 – 9.53 mm) is named “bee space”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxemics
Yep. That Hall gets everywhere doesn’t he? He knows all about “critical space”
and the bee dance
I’m sure I saw The Viking doing this once