The do start as circles! Bees spin on their butt laying the honeycomb. Mechanical pressure mashes them into hexagons.
And thats why you sometimes find pentagons, its just squished circles.
Hexagons are the bestagons
I'm very happy this has caught on.
though his how to solve traffic video is abysmal
That's... thats a fly, with stripes for some reason.
Tiger fly
There are a lot of bees that look like flies. Check out mason bees.
Shove the babies in them! And barf on them!
Obsessive Compulsive Beesorder?
Yes, this is how I relate to bees.
Octagon Concerned Bastards
Bestagons
Bugs love science, simple as
Boy that’s One Committed Bee!
You mean they skipped 4. Pointed polygons and chosen a hexagon instead. What's their problem with right angles.
C'mon man, don't be a square.
Less volume per unit of surface area
I believe the hexagonal tiling maximizes area while minimizing perimeter, right?
It's just what happens when wax deforms from pressure. You can do the same thing with plastic straws, if you pack them tightly, or compress them with your hands.
A circle should have the greatest area per perimeter and I can't think of a regular polygon with more sides that tessellates.
Why does it look like a fly?
sssshhhh is bee
Interesting. I haven't really connected hexagons and circles like this.
It's a whole thing in mathematics, in two or three dimensions, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-packing_of_equal_spheres
Fascinating.
Indeed.
Is there any paleontological evidence for insects that made less efficient hives? That would be interesting to look into.
Although I gotta imagine bugs probably figured this stuff out so long ago there might not be much evidence anymore
Haha, good question. I'm going to look at the bee family. I wonder what those fossils would look like...
Bees would be the best goddamn software architects...
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
