Honeycomb cell walls are plastic; initially built as curves the walls are reformed by bees during subsequent construction

Abstract

Honeybee comb comprises recognisable hexagons, each with straight sides. Not only are the cell side-walls flat, but so too are those that form the base of cells; base faces which are shared with cells on the opposite face of the comb. The mechanism by which bees build cells with flat sides has been the subject of speculation for centuries, but it has been conjectured by Kepler, Darwin as well as more recent researchers that bees build cylindrical cells that are transformed into flat sided prisms, without consensus as to the process by which this is achieved. By offering bees shaped wax stimuli and observing the comb that was built upon them, we have shown that under certain conditions walls will be curved and others where walls are reformed to be flat. A wall of a cell, be it a side-wall or a face of the base, with no other cell beyond it will be built as a convex curve whereas a wall with a cell to both sides will be formed flat. Furthermore, we show that these walls are plastic; walls that were initially built curved were re-shaped to be flat once a second adjacent cell had been built.