Meeting Abstract

P1-8    Scaling properties of honeycomb across social bees and wasps Cope, GC*; Goss, D; Chawla, N; Grishin, A; Bhate, D; Penick, C; Kennesaw State University Kennesaw, GA; Arizona State University Mesa, AZ; Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN; PADT Inc., Tempe, AZ; Arizona State University Mesa, AZ; Kennesaw State University Kennesaw, GA gcope@students.kennesaw.edu

The regular cells of honeycomb have fascinated scholars and mathematicians for millennia, yet research continues to produce new insights into the evolution and structural properties of hexagonal nests. Humans use hexagons in construction because they provide strength using minimal material, and bees and wasps have evolved hexagonal nests for the same reason, to conserve energy and materials in nest construction. It is not just the hexagonal cell that provides structural properties to these nests, but also individual cell parameters including cell diameter, thickness of cell walls, and rounding in the corners of each hexagonal cell. Here we measured these cell parameters in nests of 75 bee and wasp species that construct cells that vary in diameter and materials (wax, paper, mud, and a combination of mud/paper). There are two ways to increase the strength of hexagonal comb as the cell diameter increases: (1) increasing wall thickness, which has the negative effect of increasing weight and materials used, and (2) rounding the corner angles (measured as “corner radius”), which has been shown in honeybees to increase comb strength while conserving material. Therefore, we hypothesized that as nest cells increase in diameter, we would see increases in corner radius and wall thickness, though we predict corner radius will more significantly conserve nest material. We predict that investments in corner radius and wall thickness will be more important in nests constructed from wax than for paper nests due to the materials’ strength and brittleness. After measuring nests using a Keyence imaging system, we found support for both hypotheses. Furthermore, we have now begun to map traits across the Hymenoptera phylogeny to understand how the hexagonal nest structure itself evolves. Bees and wasps show economy of nest material use by using cell geometry, rather than added material, to increase strength, which offers applications for bio-inspired design and engineering.