On Tue, 26 Jun 2001, Bob & Liz wrote: Why does the queen cell look like a first grader made it out of modeling clay? Darwin said the cell was so perfect. The queen cell is out of sync with the other cells, cappings etc.. The size of queen cells always vary compared to size differences in worker cells and drone cells. Hi Bob: The queen cell looks like a first grader made it out of modeling clay because it was made by the bee equivalent of a first grader. The worker cells are so uniform because they are made by thousands of bees jammed together, the crowding ensuring that the most space efficient cell will be made. The queen cell, on the other hand, is made in free space with no others around it, and the geometry is done on an ad hoc basis by bees which have never done it before. It is essentially round, and worker cells drawn one at a time in free space would also be round. It might be instructive to take a few dozen cylinders of modeling clay about an inch long and 1/4" diameter and squeeze them together. My bet is that they will distort into hexagons. Note: this is all conjecture on my part. Best regards Donald Aitken