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For other uses, see Honeycomb (disambiguation).

Honeycomb

A natural comb of Apis dorsata. The lower part of the comb has a number of unoccupied cells.

A honeycomb is a mass of hexagonal wax cells built by honey bees in their nests to contain
their larvae and stores of honey and pollen.
Beekeepers may remove the entire honeycomb to harvest honey. Honey bees consume about
8.4 lb (3.8 kg) of honey to secrete 1 lb (454 g) of wax,[1] so it makes economic sense to return the
wax to the hive after harvesting the honey, commonly called "pulling honey" or "robbing the bees"
by beekeepers.[citation needed] The structure of the comb may be left basically intact when honey is
extracted from it by uncapping and spinning in a centrifugal machinethe honey extractor. If the
honeycomb is too worn out, the wax can be reused in a number of ways, including making
sheets of comb foundation with hexagonal pattern. Such foundation sheets allow the bees to
build the comb with less effort, and the hexagonal pattern of worker-sized cell bases discourages
the bees from building the larger drone cells.

"Artificial honeycomb" plate where bees have already completed some cells

Fresh, new comb is sometimes sold and used intact as comb honey, especially if the honey is
being spread on bread rather than used in cooking or as a sweetener.

Broodcomb becomes dark over time, because of the cocoons embedded in the cells and the
tracking of many feet, called travel stain[citation needed] by beekeepers when seen on frames of comb
honey. Honeycomb in the "supers" that are not allowed to be used for brood (e.g. by the
placement of a queen excluder) stays light-coloured.
Numerous wasps, especially Polistinae and Vespinae, construct hexagonal prism-packed combs
made of paper instead of wax; in some species (such as Brachygastra mellifica), honey is stored
in the nest, thus technically forming a paper honeycomb. However, the term "honeycomb" is not
often used for such structures.

Honeycomb geometry[edit]

Natural honeycombs on a building

Honeycomb with eggs and larvae

The bees begin to build the comb from the top of each section. When a cell is filled with honey, the bees
seal it with wax.

Closeup of an abandoned Apis florea nest, Thailand the hexagonal grid of wax cells on either side of the
nest are slightly offset from each other. This increases the strength of the comb and reduces the amount of
wax required to produce a robust structure.

The axes of honeycomb cells are always quasihorizontal, and the nonangled rows of honeycomb
cells are always horizontally (not vertically) aligned. Thus, each cell has two vertical walls, with
"floors" and "ceilings" composed of two angled walls(disparity with image "Honeycomb-Process"). The cells slope slightly
upwards, between 9 and 14, towards the open ends.
Two possible explanations exist as to why honeycomb is composed of hexagons, rather than any
other shape. First, the hexagonaltiling creates a partition with equal-sized cells, while minimizing
the total perimeter of the cells. Known in geometry as the honeycomb conjecture, this was given
by Jan Broek and proved much later by Thomas Hales. Thus, a hexagonal structure uses the
least material to create a lattice of cells within a given volume. A second reason, given by D'Arcy
Wentworth Thompson, is that the shape simply results from the process of individual bees
putting cells together: somewhat analogous to the boundary shapes created in a field of soap
bubbles. In support of this, he notes that queen cells, which are constructed singly, are irregular
and lumpy with no apparent attempt at efficiency.[2]
The closed ends of the honeycomb cells are also an example of geometric efficiency, albeit
three-dimensional and little-noticed. The ends are trihedral (i.e., composed of three planes)
sections of rhombic dodecahedra, with the dihedral angles of all adjacent surfaces measuring
120, the angle that minimizes surface area for a given volume. (The angle formed by the edges
at the pyramidal apex, known as thetetrahedral angle, is approximately 109 28' 16" (=
arccos(1/3)).)

The three-dimensional geometry of a honeycomb cell

The shape of the cells is such that two opposing honeycomb layers nest into each other, with
each facet of the closed ends being shared by opposing cells.

Opposing layers of honeycomb cells fit together

Individual cells do not show this geometric perfection: in a regular comb, deviations of a
few percent from the "perfect" hexagonal shape occur. In transition zones between the larger
cells of drone comb and the smaller cells of worker comb, or when the bees encounter obstacles,
the shapes are often distorted. Cells are also angled up about 13 from horizontal to prevent
honey from dripping out.[3]

Honeycomb section containing transition from worker to drone (larger) cells here bees make irregular and
five-cornered cells (marked with red dots).

Western honeybees and honeycomb

In 1965, Lszl Fejes Tth discovered the trihedral pyramidal shape (which is composed of
three rhombi) used by the honeybee is not the theoretically optimal three-dimensional geometry.
A cell end composed of two hexagons and two smaller rhombuses would actually be .035% (or
about one part per 2850) more efficient. This difference is too minute to measure on an actual
honeycomb, and irrelevant to the hive economy in terms of efficient use of wax, considering wild
comb varies considerably from any mathematical notion of "ideal" geometry.[4][5]

See also[edit]

Honeycomb structure

References[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has
media related
toHoneycombs.

1.

Jump up^ Graham, Joe. The Hive and the Honey Bee. Hamilton/IL: Dadant & Sons;
1992; ISBN.

2.

Jump up^ Thompson, D'Arcy Wentworth (1942). On Growth and Form. Dover
Publications. ISBN.

3.

Jump up^ Frisch, Karl von (1974). Animal Architecture. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich.

4.

Jump up^ Bessiere, Gustavo (1987). Il Calcolo Differenziale e IntegraleReso Facile ed

Attraente.IL (in Italian) (VII ed.). Milan: Hoepli. ISBN 9788820310110.

5.

Jump up^ Gianni A. Sarcone. "The solved angular puzzle of the honeycombs' cells".
2004.