[general_re]

It looks like it was drawn on foundation, on a Langenstroth type frame.

What a coincidence - that's exactly what I was going to say. Errr, yeah ;)

So, given that you seem to know a heck of a lot more than I do about the lifestyles of bees, would you say that an emergent structure like a beehive fits what we commonly think of when we say something is "designed"?

[CobaltBlue]

Langenstroth invented a way of making moveable frames made out of wood, which fit inside the wooden boxes we commonly think of beehives, and can be removed to inspect the bees or to harvest the honey.

When most people think of natural style beehives, they think of a sort of half-oval structure that is in a niche. That's actually a skep, also man made for man's convenience, typically of straw. Old fashioned.

In fact, bees in the wild build their hives in holes in trees, and crotches of trees, and inside walls of houses, and hollow logs. Inside a hole with walls, essentially.

And a wild bee hive consists of parallel rows of double sided wax structures exactly like the photo you posted only following the configuration of the natural structure.

Langenstroth, an eccentric genius, noticed the regularity with which bees do everything. The size of the cells is quite regular, for example, and so is the space between the combs, and as you can see in the photo, the combs always line up back to back offset so that the strongest part of one side is on the weakest side of the other.

Is that design? No more than a bird nest. Is a bird nest an example of design?

Is it an example of free will? No more than salmon swimming upstream to spawn at the place of their birth.

I never did understand the intelligent design argument, by the way. Are they arguing that human beings are Clockwork Oranges? Are they all Calvinists arguing predestination? Do they not believe in free will?