Looking for something else and came across this- interesting stuff:

 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202202361

 

Possibly the main take-away:

 

Our 4D studies show that honey bees build hexagonal cells directly based on
preformed hexagonal patterns formed on the comb's spine. Figure
<https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202202361#adma202202361-fi
g-0001> 1 shows a nascent cell at the growth front of the comb and a
time-resolved rendering showing the locations where new material has been
added. When describing an individual honeycomb cell, we can break it down to
its constituent wall components comprising six horizontal walls forming the
hexagonal face of the cell and three rhombic panels that form the rear
corrugate of each cell. The nascent comb cells can be seen at the growth
fronts, which are found at the tapered leading edge of the honeycomb. A
second type of growth front is found at the hexagonal rims of the existing
cells, through which the bees go about increasing the depth of the cell.
This suggests that comb grows simultaneously in all three dimensions
dynamically.


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