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All About Honeycombs
by Ernest Walden
A bee honeycomb, a beautiful word. Indeed, as beautiful as it's name; it's is the work of art of our busy buzzing bees. It is said that in the 19th century, Charles Darwin declared that a bee honeycomb is "a master piece of engineering that is absolutely perfect in economizing labor and wax". How clever and artistic are the bees then! If you study a honeycomb, you'll see that it is both a combination of great mathematical skill and artistic effort.
It is composed of a mass of wax cells built by bees in their nests or hives. These are used for housing young bees and honey. The bee honeycomb has flat vertical panels, and each panel is made up of cells which are tubes with a regular hexagonal cross section.
All the cell walls in a bee honeycomb stand 120 degrees to each other, following a perfect lattice. This structure is cleverly designed and must be very strong since the walls which separate cells are only 2 inches thick yet support 25 times their weight. The volume of each individual cell in a bee honeycomb is fixed, it has to be the right size for the bee larvae. The length must also be just right for the larvae, so it is only the cross sectional area of the honeycomb that is optional.
The honeycomb cells actually start as cylinders, with circular cross sections. The flat circles are caused by the pressure of 6 closely packed neighbours and they become hexagons, diminishing gaps between cells, so that the hexagons take up all the available space. This allows a maximum amount of honey to be stored. Hives are strong enough to hold five gallons of honey. The cells are not perfect. Bees sometimes meet obstacles, which can cause the "perfect" hexagonal shape to deviate by a few percent.
Why is honeycomb shaped this way? In order to be as efficient as possible, the cells should form perfectly so there are no gaps. It is a most efficient way to pack to accomodate a maximum amount of honey. Dirt and predators are not able to enter the honeycomb with its perfectly fitting lattice.
There is a very interesting story about a bee honeycomb. In the middle of the 18th century, in the South Church in Andover, United Church of Christ, The Rev. Mr. Lorenzo Langstroth (1810-1895), became the fifth pastor. A native of Philadelphia, he graduated from Yale College and was ordained and installed on May 11, 1836. As he could not cope with his duties because of his health, he resigned on March 30, 1839. Later he began teaching in schools and also preached in different places. In 1851 he invented the Langstroth hive. It is a rectangular box containing several frames, in which the bees make their bee honeycombs. A beekeeper removes frames which are filled with honey and replaces them with empty frames for the bees to fill in again. This revolutionized beekeeping and is still widely used today. In 1951, the Massachusetts Federation of Beekeepers' Associations honored his memory with the Lorenzo Langstroth plaque. It is said that he kept a hive in the attic of the Amos Blanchard house, now home to the Andover Historical Society.
About the Author
Ernest Walden has been a beekeeping expert for 20 years now. As a successful beekeeper, he enjoys imparting his knowledge to those that share his interest. To learn more about honeycombs and beekeeping hives, click the link below to visit his site. You can find lots of information there, including free courses.
thebeekeepingbook.com
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