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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
James Fischer <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 24 Jul 2013 16:26:22 -0400
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> Bottom line, honey bees and wasps are building 
> hexagons, not cylinders, to form combs. Non-comb 
> forming bees and wasps use cylinders.

And the exact shape that bees use just HAPPENS to also be the EXACT shape to
which closely-packed soap bubbles deform?

So, on the one hand, we are offered a tale of a creature with only about
900,000 neurons building precise structures with regular features, further
complicated by the (tens? hundreds?) of different bees contributing to each
cell without any means of communication about angles and such.  

On the other hand, we have simple physical forces which has exactly the same
effect on closely-packed cylinders any material flexible enough. We also
have the clear evidence of variation in both sizes of cells and the
"angular" vs "rounded" nature of the cells as one gets to the edges of the
frames, where bees are faced with spaces that are slightly bigger than the
"standard" cell size.

I'm going to stick with "the laws of physics as demonstrated", over insect
architects, as one thing we know about nature is the lack of straight lines
except when the laws of physics step in to create them. 

> ...bumble bees, build spherical cells from collected materials.

Cups in bumble bee nests are never closely-packed as are the cells in wasp
and honey bee nests, so there would be no forces upon the cell, due to a
lack of adjacent cells.

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