> Yes, this is what we stated in our book...and 
> I have yet to be convinced that this is 
> incorrect (but I'm certainly open to the possibility).

Weaire & Phelan were convinced, and so was the peer review panel for the
journal "Nature", and thus so was I: 
http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc99/7_24_99/bob2.htm  (plain English
discussion).

[TL;DR - Toth found a very slightly more efficient cell shape than appears
in bee honeycomb in the 1960s, and Weaire/Phelan figured out that the only
difference was the viscosity of the materials used, as they published back
in 1999.]

Quoting the article:
"In 1964, Toth discovered that a combination of two hexagons and two squares
does a little better than an end cap of three rhombuses in terms of the
efficient use of wax. The difference, however, is very small. "By building
such cells, the bees would save per cell less than 0.35 percent of the area
of an opening (and a much smaller percentage of the surface area of a
cell)," he concluded.  Several years ago, Weaire and his colleague Robert
Phelan experimented with a liquid-air foam to test Toth's mathematical
model. They pumped equal-sized bubbles, about 2 mm in diameter, of a
detergent solution between two glass plates to generate a double layer. The
two layers of trapped bubbles formed hexagonal patterns at the glass plates.
The interface between the two layers adopted Toth's structure.

When Weaire and Phelan thickened the bubble walls by adding more liquid,
however, they unexpectedly found an abrupt transition. When the walls
reached a particular thickness, the interface suddenly switched to the
three-rhombus configuration of a honeycomb.
The switch also occurs in the reverse direction as liquid is removed."

> explain paper wasps

Wasps are mean and nasty bundles of pure evil that can sting you through the
door panel of a Range Rover... oh, sorry, you meant "explain why their combs
are also hexagonal".  They build very thin, very wet surfaces from
masticated wood pulp that are subject to exactly the same physics as soap
bubbles and beeswax.  I doubt that Weaire/Phelan will bother working out the
exact viscosity required to reproduce exact copies of wasp cells, but
someone else could give it a try.

> the pulp that paper wasps build their hexagonal combs 
> out of is not subject to "melting" by heat, and that 
> even as a slurry, pulp or mud doesn't have too much 
> of this "soapy" characteristic.

It is very wet, and very thin, and the physical forces at work apply just as
universally to damp "paper-mache" as they do to soap bubbles and beeswax.  I
don't have one (yet), but I suspect that a sufficiently slow-drying/curing
plastic (say, 6 hours) and a 3-D printer could be used to make
closely-packed cylinders, which would deform to honey bee "comb".  This
might be far easier than the soap-bubble work, and provide tangible proof
that could be examined at one's leisure.

> but the idea that bees and wasps would both make 
> hexagonal cells, but would form the hexagons using 
> different techniques seems less likely than likely, 
> at least to me

Neither make hexagons.  Both make very wet and thin "flimsy" cylinders,
using different materials, and very similar building rules which then deform
to hexagonal-type shapes before they dry out, exactly as one would expect.

> Is there something I'm missing?

Apparently, at least the Weaire/Phelan paper, to start.

> I understand the 'soap bubble' theory
> ...read about it in Tautz's book

Tautz was undoubtedly quoting Weaire/Phelan.  I hope Tautz properly cited
their work.

> I have a deep respect for good science

Then papers like Weaire & Phelan's in "Nature" should fit the bill.  The
idea of the deformation of wax cylinders made by bees to the Toth-type
structures found in bee comb did not originate with Weaire and Phelan, this
knowledge was far older "common knowledge".  I remember Bucky Fuller even
mentioning this once when he spoke about structures in the late 1970s, as
Bucky was always selling triangles, and bad-mouthing all other structural
shapes as inferior.

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