Gaps in convex disc packings with an application to 1-Steiner minimum trees

We show that if six translates of a convex disc C all touch C, and no two of the translates have interior points in common, then there are never more than two gaps, i.e., consecutive non-touching pairs of translates. We also characterize the configurations where there are two, one or no gaps. This result is then applied to show that the Steiner point in a 1-Steiner Minimum Tree in a normed plane has degree at most five if the unit ball is not an affine regular hexagon (where Steiner points of degree six exist).