Wax nest
Honey bees are the inhabitants of the forest. The forest for them is a native element, both for birds and animals. From early spring until late autumn, he gives them food. Trees protect them from the wind and the scorching sun. In the summer in the forest, the air is moist, cool, the plants are juicy and well nectar, and in winter it is warmer in the forest than in open places.
In natural conditions, bees live in hollows of trees. Here they hide from the rains and colds, fleeing from the enemies. In the hollows they arrange their nests, store stocks of honey, grow offspring. The hollow is their house and fortress. True, in the distant past, bees, like birds, built nests directly on branches of trees, above the ground. And now sometimes you can meet in the forest of bees nests right under the open sky. Such wax constructions in the crown of trees are erected, for example, by Indian bees.
The building material for bees, as you know, is wax – the secret of their wax glands. In spring and summer, on the belly of young bees, you can see two rows of white or slightly yellowish oval scales. These are pentagonal wax plates, smoothly polished ready-made building blocks. They are going to the construction of honeycombs. Bees sometimes lose wax flakes, especially when there is no construction work.
They can be found at the bottom of the hive. Sometimes bees fold wax scales on bars of frames and a wooden ceiling, compact in lumps, make of them crosspieces, bridges for transitions, outgrowths. With this wax, early in spring bees seal cells with larvae. In a kilogram of wax up to 5 million plates.
Wax plates of the bee cover the bottom of the cells, erect walls from them, instructing one piece on the other, and so artfully solder that no seams can be seen.
Wax is an excellent building material. It well preserves the heat of housing, softens at elevated temperatures, which makes
The architecture of the honeycomb is unique. They consist of cells – geometrically regular hexahedrons – prisms. These prisms form a continuous waxy layer. And on the bottom of each cell there are three regular diamonds.
The technical accuracy of these natural builders is amazing. Architects often turned to bee buildings and found with their help the best technical solutions.
The construction of the honeycomb is perfect in every respect. It requires a minimum of building materials from bees, but it provides the honeycomb with high strength and high capacity. The hexagonal shape of the cells allows bees to be more economical and better to use the area. By the way, the life of all social insects is subject to the law of economy. Only none of them has reached such a height as the honey bees have risen. Cells of bumblebees and wasps are round. In the nest, they therefore have many voids. Bees do not have such an unused space. At them each wall of one cell simultaneously serves as a wall and for another, as in our comfortable modern apartments.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)Wax nest