> Most of the ["bees make cylinders" claims]
> (not all) have been done by people with
> backgrounds in engineering, whereas the
> ["bees make Toth-like structures" claims]
> usually come from bee researchers.
I don't think this lends credence to any conclusion except that "bee
researchers", like so many in the "observational" sciences, tend to abhor
math.
I remain amazed that anyone would accept any claim that any complex
geometric structure was "built with intent" by an insect, let alone massive
numbers of precisely identical ones, moreso when the evidence of
transitional shapes abound around the edges of frames, and those
transitional shapes show the clear effects of the larger cylinders bees are
forced to build on the "close-packing" effect.
For the doubters, here is a video of the hexagonal shapes being created with
bubbles on the surface of water:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbdQrR2nTRA
Note that the "edges" of the mass of bubbles are also hex-shaped, and look
very much like what one sees at the edges of combs.
Also, when looking at the leading edge of a comb under construction, one
sees a "Catenary Curve" - another universal result of physical forces acting
on materials ranging from vines to stainless steel suspension bridge support
cables. Did the bees do the math and decide to overtly construct such an
efficient curve? This is just as silly as asking if the vine hanging
between two points decided to adopt that same shape in solidarity with the
bees!
In general, symmetry tends to exist as a result of physical forces and
features.
> If you watch bees make comb, you see them making flat cell walls.
This seems to be because the flat walls and rhomboid bases form very soon in
the process, when the "cylinder" is no deeper than a soup bowl. I don't
think that the close-packing deformation to crystalline shapes can happen
with a "bowl" as shallow as the embossing provided in foundation. But when
the walls change over from circular to hex, the bees clearly do follow the
pattern they find to build the rest of the cell.
> I can SEE that it is made up of flat panels.
You don't have to see it, it is easy to know that they exist as such from
the inherent offset of the cells, and the angles upward from the horizontal
- how else would they fit together? Drawing the cells in cross-section
makes it easier to see the inevitability of the shapes of the "floor tiles".
> Or, they start with 60 degree angles,
> using the wooden bar for the tops
> of the first row of cells (every other
> cell, that is). This way they get more
> usable cells in the first row. In the
> combs from skeps, these two
> orientations were equally frequent
> (Thompson 1930).
"Equally frequent" means to me that the bees were not making any choice
between the two methods of attaching comb to a top bar. They started
building, and whatever fit was what they ended up with. The debate about
"point up" versus "flat face up" orientation of the hexagons has gone on for
centuries without resolution, and I don't think it matters to the bees, or
to the eventual structural qualities of the resulting comb. I've never seen
consistency in this aspect of comb-building, even within the same colony.
The problem is that comb removal from cut-out jobs tends to destroy the
topmost edge, and it is hard to photograph each comb in place before it is
removed, as the spaces tend to be tight, and by the time one is removing
comb, one is a little sticky to be handling cameras.
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My typo rate may vary
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