Eli5: How do the combs in honey combs get made? Is there any reason for the stop sign shape?

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I know bees take nectar and pollen etc. But how do they make the actual comb part. You see people pressing spoons against them and the honey pours out. Is that a different part of the process? How do bees know to make the shape like that? Rather, why do they make the combs in that shape?

In: Engineering

4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

They don’t choose to make honey comb shapes. It happens naturally.

Find yourself some soapy water and create seven bubbles. They’re all round, right? Now, nudge them together so one bubble is surrounded but the other six. If your bubbles are suitably equally sized, the central bubble isn’t round any more – it’s hexagonal.

This happens over and over again until all the cells are hexagonal, pushed into shape by their neighbours.

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