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To: Ichneumon; Pete; thoughtomator; Soliton; Right Wing Professor

If you look at your soap bubble picture, you will see numerous pentagons, especially one layer in from the edges. And if you try to visually follow the rows they don't have the same neatness as honecombs.

If it's the same force So why don't the honeycombs look more like the bubbles around the edges of the combs.

Plus don't the bees build the honeycombs one layer at a time. I don't see how the comb would have the opportunity to reorganize itself into a honeycomb shape the way you are suggesting.


66 posted on 05/18/2005 12:32:13 PM PDT by DannyTN
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To: DannyTN

The bees do no calculus. The combs grow like crystals-once an initial hexagon is created the bees simply replicate that shape and size. The original hexagon is an optimum shape programmed through instinctive behavior.

http://www.ars.usda.gov/ar/archive/may97/beecells0597.htm

-snip-

"The scientists did this by installing in the hive sheets of starter cells that are smaller than those typically used by beekeepers. Commercially managed honey bees use these starter cells as a blueprint for building their honeycomb. With wax they manufacture themselves, they form thousands of cells to create the many floors of the honeycomb. The smaller the starter cells, the smaller the cells the bees themselves construct."


69 posted on 05/18/2005 12:47:43 PM PDT by Soliton (Alone with everyone else.)
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