The hexagonal structure of a complete cell appeared to be
determined at the beginning of its construction. The current
study found no round precursor cells, except during the very
early phase in the building of the cell foundations. After the
upward construction of the walls commenced, the three
bottom plates became rhomboid in shape and the cell took
on a hexagonal form.

It was observed that builders actively increased their thorax
temperature to heat up the wax. Depending on the position
within the comb, the thorax temperatures of builders ranged
between 32.3 and 39.6 °C, which generated wax temperatures
between 33.6 and 37.8 °C. 

Tautz (2008) stated that a
wax temperature of 40 °C is necessary to initiate a liquid
equilibrium state, but this wax temperature was never
achieved during the cell-building process observed in the
current study (Fig. 3, Online Resource 3). However, the wax
was heated up by the worker bees, and there was strong
evidence that this energy increased the plasticity of wax,
thereby facilitating its shaping (Kurstjens et al. 1985).

At the
comb edge where new cells foundations were added, the
temperatures of builders were significantly higher than towards
the centre of the comb where the hexagonal cell walls
were constructed (36.1±1.2 versus 34.9±1.0 °C). Therefore,
the increase in the temperature during cell building appeared
to be important for establishing the foundations but not for
the hexagonal cell form.

During the construction of
hexagonal cells, the wax temperature was between 33.6 and
37.6 °C. This is well below 40 °C, i.e. the temperature at
which wax is assumed to exist in the liquid equilibrium that
is essential for self-organised building.

Hexagonal comb cells of honeybees are not produced via a liquid equilibrium process
Daniel Bauer & Kaspar Bienefeld
Naturwissenschaften (2013) 100:45–49

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