Clever carpentry helps bees fix wild honeycombs | Hacker News Reader

Clever carpentry helps bees fix wild honeycombs

sciencemag.org

49 pointslnyan17 comments

> That's difficult to do, as the insects work in the dark

I remember when I started keeping bees, this was a big moment of realization for me. They do everything in the dark, including their waggle dances. I’ve been even more impressed with these little marvels since then.

Direct link to the research article -

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/31/e2103605118

Is there an open access version anywhere?

There's always scihub, though I'm not sure if HN allows linking directly to it.

> The design maximizes the storage area for honey while minimizing the amount of wax needed.

Wouldn’t a triangle shape be even better?

Triangles use more surface for the same area; the ideal shape would be a circle, but those don't tesselate (though if you pack them hard enough you probably just end up with hexagons with the occasional mistake... which is exactly what is the bees are ending up with).

For a visualization

https://i.imgur.com/azrbSBf.jpeg

I heard bees actually build circles, which turn into hexagons due to melting and reforming.

Why would it consistently turn into a hexagon as opposed to an octagon?

Hexagonal packing is the densest way to pack circles or spheres [1] [2].

That's why it pops up all the time in nature, from honeycombs to crystals, the way bubbles, beads, etc arrange, etc.

Of course circles and spheres are also optimal in term of surface area to volume ratio.

Bees have evolved to build the optimal honeycomb.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_packing

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-packing_of_equal_spheres

Octagons don't fit together on their own; they need squares in between them. Like a soccer ball. Hexagons let you cover area with the same shape over and over again.

Let's say 3 sides of a triangle enclose an area of A.

If you add 3 more sides to get a hexagon, you double the perimeter (and therefore construction costs), but the area enclosed is 6A (6 of the original triangles fit in the new hexagon).

But if you double the length of the sides on the hexagon, then you double the construction cost but quadruple the area. Should we conclude that bees should prefer to make their hives out of a single giant hexagon?

No, not at all! The goal of the comb isn't just about fencing off area, it's about having functional chambers that can be used for things.

The chamber size is fit to purpose; smaller cells for incubating worker bee larvae, larger cells for drones and queens.

Even for honey and nectar storage, the cells are sized to a single serving (fortunately roughly the same size as a hatchery cell), so the bees can consume what they need while the rest stays safely sealed with wax caps.

There is far more to it than a single criteria. - surface to building material - robustness (resistance to pressure I suppose is the most crutial) - surface optimisation (those things are holding something, honey, but also larvas). - chamber traversal (bees have been observed to traverse the Chambers). At least from the outside for auditing.

On this topic I suggest viewing CPG Grey's video "Hexagons are the Bestagons"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thOifuHs6eY

https://archive.is/ZNEyP

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