From the July 27, 1935, issue
By Science News
“GEOMETRY” OF BEES IS NOT RESULT OF PLANNING
Mathematical powers are often ascribed to bees and wasps, in the making of the hexagonal cells of their wax and paper combs. This is a very pretty example of the more-naïve kind of nature study, but it must be dismissed (however regrettably) as just imagination. Bees and wasps are not architects or even geometricians; their “hexagons” are really squeezed cylinders.
Not often tightly squeezed cylinders at that, as you will see if you inspect a natural honeycomb or a hornets’ nest such as Cornelia Clarke has photographed for the cover of this issue of the Science News Letter. Most of the actual cavity openings are approximate circles, inscribed within a hexagon. A little closer inspection will show that the cells are built separately, each as a cylinder, and that they are partly cemented together by looser wefts of tissue between the walls.