Bees Have Great Construction Skills

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Bees build honeycombs with staggering geometric perfection. They construct hexagons: that is, tubes with six sides. This is actually the best possible shape to hold a given volume of liquid while using a minimum of building material.

These structures are compact, yet spacious enough inside to support a population of up to a hundred thousand bees. All the tools the worker bee needs are found in its body. Their head is attached to their neck by two pivotal joints which are surrounded by sensory hairs. When the heavy head is pulled by gravity, the hairs on that side of the bee’s neck are stimulated, so it knows which way is down. Every bee uses its head as a plumb line to arrange the hexagonal cells in exact horizontal and vertical rows. Bees poke the walls of the honeycomb with their jaws to make sure the thickness is right. It seems the bees can measure the distances and angles with the span between their two front legs as they spread the wax with their jaws.

Bees all agree on which way the comb should face without any foreman to instruct them. We think they read the Earth’s magnetic field, and then build a structure turned at a certain angle to it. Moreover, the bees make sure the cells are tilted at a thirteen degree grade to keep the honey from running out.

So next time someone says they want to learn construction, tell them to watch bees.