Bees and wasps use the same architectural solutions to join large hexagons to small hexagons
Published:29 Aug.2023 Source:PLOS
Bees and wasps have converged on the same architectural solutions to nest-building problems, according to a study by Michael L. Smith in the Department of Biological Sciences at Auburn University, US, and colleagues, publishing July 27 in the open access journal PLOS Biology.
Both honeybees and social wasps build nests made up of hexagonal "cells" where they raise their young and store their food. While they use different materials to build their nests, bees and wasps have independently evolved this hexagonal comb structure because it is the most efficient use of space and building materials. However, in some species of both bees and wasps, queens and males are larger than workers, and so need larger cells, creating a problem -- cells of different sizes don't fit snuggly together in the comb. The researchers analyzed photographs from the nests of five honeybee species and five wasp species, containing a total of 22,745 cells.
They found that the size difference between these specialized reproductive cells and worker cells ranged from zero in the wasp Metapolybia mesoamerica, up to drone cells in nests of the honeybee Apis andreniformis that were 2.7 times larger than worker cells. The bigger the difference, the bigger the architectural problem.