Talk:Honeycomb

message: "A third possibility is that honeybees have some kind of understanding of the fundamental geometry which underlies the physical universe." Is there enough evidence for this to be in an encyclopedic article?
:Of course they have a practical understanding of "of the fundamental geometry which underlies the physical universe." After all, worker bees plane the cell walls to a remarkably consistent .0025" thickness. It is believed that they do so by gauging the flex of the walls as they work it with their mandibles. How (or whether) they compensate for the effects of temperature on the rigidity or compliance of the wax, is a matter for speculation. Whether they hew to the precepts of the Ideal Triangle and its underlying stability, is more abstractly speculative, and way beyond the scope of this article. In my humble opinion. ;-) Just plain Bill 15:53, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You use too many commas.Brakoholic (talk) 18:26, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I recommend that we merge this page with the current contents of the brood comb page.  Bees do not draw an artificial distinction between honeycomb and broodcomb.  The size of the brood nest naturally varies through the year as the bees need more space to raise brood.  If the only space available is in the honey supers, they will raise brood up there.  (Some beekeepers do try to control this through the use of queen excluders but they have their own disadvantages and failings.)  Neither page is so large that we should be thinking of splitting the pages yet.  Rossami (talk) 18:28, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge from [[brood comb]]

message: One summer in the early 1990's I worked for Al Carl, the chief Massachusetts bee inspector. My area was Norfolk county, but together with Mr. Carl, out towards the Cape (Cape Cod) we found the first recorded instance of Varroa jacobsonii in Massachusetts, using the ether roll test. Mr. Carl was the one who called wild  honeycomb found between the top bars of one super and the bottom bars of the one above, the "beekeeper's lunch." Cite that as a "private communication," if you will. ;-)  __Just plain Bill 20:58, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comb honey is the "beekeeper's lunch" 

message: I just removed this paragraph from the article:
:[the picture on the left (Honeycomb-Process.png) shows the growing cells to be vertically aligned with horizontal floors and angled walls.  These must be non-union bees.]
Never mind the frivolous last sentence, the concern is a valid one. The box comb pic is clearly right-side up, as shown by the partially drawn comb, and the "floors" are level, while the walls are angled. Searching for images of comb in frames, one may find cells lined up either horizontally or vertically. Artifact of how foundation is offered to the bees? Perhaps. The pic mentioned is too dark and low-res for me to see if there are thin strips of foundation at the top of each box, or not.
This issue deserves to have some knowledgeable person give it a sentence or two and clear it up.  __Just plain Bill 19:30, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cell alignment 

message: I just removed this paragraph from the article:
It is unlikely that the honey bee constructs the honeycomb based on instinct, fossils from millions of years ago have show honey comb was always the same shape, and if honey bee's were to experiment with differnt shapes they would have long died before they found a shape that both protected their eggs and provided a sterdy home for hundeds of bees. 
Somebody else may have fun getting it to work... Not sure what the editor meant by "instinct" in this context. __Just plain Bill (talk) 04:31, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Instinct, or what else? 

message: Just undid a change from "robbing the bees" to "extracting." Taking honeycomb out of the hive is not extracting, that comes later, in the honey house. Bees will rob honey from weak, poorly guarded hives. Humans rob honey from bee hives. A beekeeper who robs the bees too much will not be keeping them for very long. This is not merely my opinion, but commonly known beekeeping lore. __Just plain Bill (talk) 12:59, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: "Lore" being the key word here, imo. Isn't this meant to be an encyclopedia?Brakoholic (talk) 18:33, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Robbery 

message: Just undid the removal of text from the geometry section. The removed text is relevant, in that it shows that although the bees build comb in a simpler geometry than that shown by Tóth, it is good enough for their purposes. It has everything to do with an economy of pattern complexity imposed by the neurological limitations of an individual worker bee, and very little to do with some theoretical ideal. __Just plain Bill (talk) 21:43, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Ideal" geometry? 

message: Had a colony move into my basement between floor joists.  I took a picture:  Honeycomb 20090206 jhansonxi.jpg Jhansonxi (talk) 18:16, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice new comb there. I added the image to the swarm section of the Beekeeping article. __Just plain Bill (talk) 23:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  More Pictures

message: is there any information about why in english we use the word "comb" to describe the hexagonal structure of bees wax, I couldn't find any information on the page for comb or on the wikitionary page for both comb and honey comb--voodoom (talk) 06:47, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Terms in Indo-European languages for some concepts related to honey, bees and hives says "The English term honeycomb was hunigcamb in Old English, and hony combe in Middle English around 1300. The word comb might have been used because the arrangement of parallel wax combs built by bees suggested the teeth of a hair comb, or because a ridge could also be called a comb, as cock’s comb (OED)." Sean.hoyland - talk 07:05, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology of the word "Honey'''comb'''" 

message: Which part needs citation: the economic sense (which is obvious) or the commonly called (whose removal would not hurt the article)? —Tamfang (talk) 20:40, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  pulling the robbery 

message: Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that :File:Bienenwabe mit Eiern und Brut 5.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on February 7, 2018. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2018-02-07. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 04:15, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:File:Bienenwabe mit Eiern und Brut 5.jpg]] to appear as POTD soon