I.

Introduction

Patterns exist in all areas of nature. They are dynamic connecting interrelationships between
everything. Just like the hexagonal patterns that are used by the honeybees in constructing their
hives.
The nature’s excellent mathematicians are the honeybees they carefully constructed a perfectly
uniform hexagonal-shaped wax cells, which they store their honey. The hexagon is the strongest
shape known. Hexagonal patterns are prevalent in nature due to their efficiency. This means that
honeycombs require less wax to construct and gain lots of strength under compression. Hexagon
is the highest order polygon which is capable of covering an area completely by itself. Combining
wax and mathematics they create these engineering wonders. Scientists claim the tiny insects
can calculate angles and can even comprehend the roundness of the Earth. Since it’s so central
to survival, honeybees have to perfect the hive’s architectural design. This is important for bees
because it means that if they build a structure from beeswax it needs to be as energy inexpensive
as possible and so it should minimize the amount of beeswax used. At the same time, however,
the structure needs to be physically strong, leak-proof, resistant to attack from predators and well-
suited to the range of purposes for which it was built. Quite a difficult design brief for even the
best of architects.

they need to make sure that they aren’t wasting resources when creating the structures that will
house nectar and honey. The secret is in the geometry of the structures. But another reason is
that honeybees are in fact excellent mathematicians.

https://www.iflscience.com/physics/why-do-honey-bees-make-hexagonal-honeycomb/
By ensuring that all cells are identical and with uniform, straight edges, then the cells fit perfectly,
neatly and tight together. Gaps are minimized, meaning that no vital space is wasted, and (with
the exception of outer cells) each individual cell shares its walls with its neighbour. All this means
that bees are able to produce the maximum number of cells with the amount of wax used. the
survival of the whole colony depends upon the proper functioning of each of the parts, so it would
surely seem more efficient for bees to be working to produce identical cells which fit together.

https://www.buzzaboutbees.net/why-bees-use-hexagons.html

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So why not a circle, a square or even a triangle? The reason that bees chose hexagons as
building blocks and storage units has only recently been discovered, but the logic behind the
choice was always there. Bees avoid using circles as cells within a honeycomb because circles
use up too much space, and a good portion of the space would be unusable.
If you put a bundle of flat circles together, there will exist excess space in between each
circular-unit that would go unused. By using shapes with straight edges, bees are able to stack
units so that no excess space exists between the straight shapes.

Squares are not used because the four corners are too long to offer proper support to other
squares. However, if a hexagon has shorter edges, then a honeycomb is less likely to collapse
under the weight of other hexagonal units. In other words, the longer the edge, the weaker the
support, and the more edges a shape has, then the more support a shape can offer weight
coming from above. This is only provided that all shapes are of comparable size.

Finally there are triangles, which seem perfect for honeycomb design. Then again, triangles
require a greater amount of beeswax to be built. In the bee community, beeswax is a valuable
item. Only one ounce of beeswax is produced for every eight ounces of honey consumed.

So that is why bees are smarter than you. In fact, manned space missions are even utilizing this
hexagonal structure for building small living quarters that are capable of housing several
individuals within one small space.

https://www.jjext.com/why-are-honeycombs-shaped-like-hexagons-bee-removal

Mathematical Illustration
"Bees, then, know iust this fact which is of service to themselves, that the hexagon is greater than the
square and the triangle and will hold more honey for the same expenditure of material used in
constructing the different figures."

Circular Loglc It is worth noting that of all plane figures the circle has the maximum area (0.09P2' for a
fixed perimeter. The circle, however is not suitable for a bee cell because then is too much wasted space
between circlet when they are packed together (diagran 3). The advantage of the hexagon over thr
circle is brought out in diagram 4. The sir outer hexagons yield the inner one fot free, since sides are
shared, but the sir outer circles do not yield a free inner cir cle-it must be drawn-since circles nev er have
sides in common. More subtle ir the savings that comes from the sharing o adjacent sides by the six
outer hexagons The six are constructed from the perime ters of only five hexagons. Although sever
circles are indeed seven circles, five hexa gons are effectively seven. This neat in sight was pointed out
by William Roberts a New Hampshire apiarist, in a recent is sue of Mathematics Teacher. Roberts
computed that the seven circles requirt 21.4 percent more wax than the sever hexagons but enclose
10.3 percent lesr area. Since the opening of a honeycomb cel is a regular hexagon, one might suppose
that the cell as a whole has the shape of what mathematicians call a regular hexagonal prism: an eight-
sided prism consisting of two regular hexagons joined by six walls (in describing the cell's shape, the
opening is counted as a side). This is not the case, however, because the back end of the cell-the closed
end-is not a flat surlace but a protruding trihedral pyramid. To be specific, the protrusion consists ol
three rhombuses, four-sided polygons with all sides the same length and opposite sides parallel. The
three rhombuses make the cell a 10-sided prism.

Of all shapes, the circle has the maximum area for a given perimeter, but it is not suitable for a bee cell
because too much space would be wasted between circles ldiagram 3f . Another advantage of the
hexagonal form derives from the sharing of adjacent sides (diagram 4f . The six outer hexagons yield a
seventh, inner one for free. This isn't true of circles.

Pappus thought that the bees chose thr hexagon over the triangle and the squan because the hexagon
encloses more arei for a given perimeter. (lt can be showr that for a perimeter P, the area of an equi.
lateral triangle is 0.05P2, the area of ; square is 0.06P2 and the area of a regular hexagon is 0.07P2.) In
other words, thr bee has clever$ designed the cells so tha they hold the maximum amount of honel for a
minimum amount of wax.

Pappus singled out the triangle, the square and the hexagon as candidates for a honeycomb cell because
they are the only regular polygons (straight-line figures with all sides equal and angles equal) that can
cover a plane without leaving any open regions. Imagine that you are laying tiles on a floor. Disregarding
what happens when you reach the walls, it's clear that you can completely cover the floor with
triangular tiles, square tiles or hexagonal tiles.

II. Discussion

While hexagonal cells are used in beehive honeycombs and some packing materials because of their
strength and dense packing, this study shows that circular columns can make a stronger structure. The
list of structures from strongest to weakest are: (1) cylinder (averaging 164.8 kg of load at crushing
weight), (2) hexagon (averaging 136.8 kg of load at crushing weight), (3) square (averaging 127 kg of
load at crushing weight), (4) triangle (averaging 89.2 kg of load at crushing weight). The results suggest
that the larger number of sides of the shape (smaller the flat faces on the column sides), the higher
amount of weight that it will support. Cylinders may be the strongest because there are no flat faces.
Further testing is needed to study this.

Honeycomb structures are lightweight and do not crush downward easily; this project studies which
honeycomb cell shape among triangular, square, hexagonal and circular columns will provide a structure
with the highest compressive strength.

To find out, the industrious insect architects calculated the areas of the triangle, the square and
the hexagon and found that the hexagon was in fact the shape that gave the most storage
space. They agreed on an ideal size and returned to work.

https://interestingengineering.com/why-is-the-hexagon-everywhere-all-about-this-seemingly-common-
shape

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5276/97163018ce4815e569b65568d7bf5823afb6.pdf