A few years ago I came across a swarm living in a rock cavity. The cavity was formed when lava flowed into water creating “pillows”. The bees had moved into the space left between two pillows. Unfortunately for the bees, the cavity was in easy reach of a bear’s paw and when I rode back to check on it in the fall, a bear had cleaned it out. 

The link below shows photos of the basalt pillows with bees in residence and comb remnants left on the ceiling of the cavity after the bear was done with it. Wish I’d thought to take a photo looking across the combs.

As mentioned, pillow basalt forms when lava flows into water. The cooling shock of water creates a crust or rind of glass on the outside of the pillow. This glassy rind weathers to an orange colour. It looked like the interior walls of the bee’s cavity were coated with propolis and I’m wondering it was there to protect against flakes of glass. Or it may have been used to clean up the place after a packrat had moved out. 

The cavity entrance faced south and the comb was oriented north/south. 

I have also included a couple of photos of tiled looking basalt. These tiles seems to be an exception to the ‘rule’ that nature likes circles and hexagons. I’ve been told these sorts of formations are created when lava flows onto ice or frozen ground.

Despite all the interesting discussion, I am still uncertain how the new ‘soup bowls warp into hex cells’ theory works. Is the paper, “Honeybee Combs: how the circular cells transform into rounded cells.” by Karihaloo, Zhang and Wang, available on the web?
 
 https://picasaweb.google.com/109168450055608275269/TilesPillowsAndPillars?authkey=Gv1sRgCLqV1puquu2DlAE#


Ted 

 

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html