“Hexagons apply to almost everything you can build.”įor having never done a day of math homework in their lives, bees sure seem to use some creative geometry and engineering to build their headquarters. That’s what I learned from my friend Pizhong Qioa, an engineer and professor at WSU. It gives materials extra strength.Īfter all, materials made with hexagon shapes can also handle a lot of force, even if they are made out of a lighter material. Hexagons and honeycomb shapes are also useful for building things humans use, too, like bridges, airplanes, and cars. Scientists don’t really know why it happens, but the bees seem to be using their body heat to melt the wax from a circle shape into a hexagon shape. They found certain bees would start out making circles in the wax using their body as a tool. Not too long ago, some scientists wondered how exactly the bees build these hexagons. Having a sturdy and useful hive can help bees get the job done. “And she is responsible for pollinating your fruits, vegetables, and nuts.” Its dimension can be clarified as n -honeycomb for a honeycomb of n -dimensional space. It is an example of the more general mathematical tiling or tessellation in any number of dimensions. “The honey bee is an amazing animal, really fun to work with,” Cobey said. In geometry, a honeycomb is a space filling or close packing of polyhedral or higher-dimensional cells, so that there are no gaps. They make it possible for us to eat food. It’s my cat instinct to swat at a bee, but I try not to because bees are really important. They can use the energy to do another really important job: carry pollen from flower to flower that allows new plants to grow. The hexagon might just save bees some time and energy. The structure is important to hold all this weight and protect the honey, especially during winter. In some places they can even produce 300 to 500 lbs. A bee colony can produce 100 pounds of honey, Cobey said. Then they can add this wax to the comb as they build. HONEYCOMB SHAPE HONEY COMB BEE HIVE HARVEST HEXAGON SHAPE WAX CELLS CONTAIN LARVAE BEEKEEPER COOKIE CUTTER BAKING TOOL 3D PRINTED MADE IN USA PR2144 Size: 3 3/4. Honeybees have to make and eat about two tablespoons of honey to make one ounce of wax. The wax comes from glands on the bees’ bellies, or abdomens. It takes the bees quite a bit of work to make the honeycomb. “The geometry of this shape uses the least amount of material to hold the most weight,” she said. Cobey explained that humans have recently used math to find out why hexagons make the most sense. But the hexagon is the strongest, most useful shape.ĭon’t just ask the bees. The worker bees could use triangles or squares for storage. When you think about it, making circles wouldn’t work too well. They can hold the queen bee’s eggs and store the pollen and honey the worker bees bring to the hive. That’s what I found out when I visited my friend Sue Cobey, a bee researcher at Washington State University.Ĭobey showed me some honeycombs where the female bees live and work. In fact, we’ve actually never seen bees make any other shape. When bees make hexagons in their hives, the six-sided shapes fit together perfectly.

Honeycomb shape