Honeycomb in the context of Brood comb

A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect from the genus Apis of the largest bee family, Apidae. Honey bees are known for their construction of perennial nests within cavities (i.e. beehives) containing hexagonal cells made of secreted wax, their large colony sizes, and their routine regurgitation of digested carbohydrates as surplus food storage in the form of honey, the lattermost of which distinguishes their hives as a prized foraging target of many mellivorous animals including honey badgers, bears and human hunter-gatherers.

Although honey bees represent only a small fraction of the roughly 20,000 known species of bees, they are the bee clade most familiar to humans and are also the most valuable beneficial insects to agriculture and horticulture. The best-known honey bee species is the western honey bee (Apis mellifera), which was domesticated and farmed (i.e. beekeeping) for honey production and crop pollination. The only other domesticated species is the eastern honey bee (Apis cerana), which are raised in South, Southeast and East Asia.

Waxes are a diverse class of organic compounds that are lipophilic solids that are malleable near ambient temperatures. They include higher alkanes and lipids, typically with melting points above about 40 °C (104 °F), melting to give low viscosity liquids. Waxes are insoluble in water but soluble in nonpolar organic solvents such as hexane, benzene and chloroform. Natural waxes of various types are produced by plants and animals and occur in petroleum.

A bone is a rigid organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells, store minerals, help regulate acid-base homeostasis, provide structure and support for the body, and enable mobility and hearing. Bones come in a variety of shapes and sizes and have complex internal and external structures.

Bone tissue (also known as osseous tissue or bone in the uncountable) is a form of hard tissue, specialised connective tissue that is mineralized and has an intercellular honeycomb-like matrix, which helps to give the bone rigidity. Bone tissue is made up of different types of bone cells: osteoblasts and osteocytes (bone formation and mineralisation); osteoclasts (bone resorption); modified or flattened osteoblasts (lining cells that form a protective layer on the bone surface). The mineralised matrix of bone tissue has an organic component of mainly ossein, a form of collagen, and an inorganic component of bone mineral, made up of various salts. Bone tissue comprises cortical bone and cancellous bone, although bones may also contain other kinds of tissue including bone marrow, endosteum, periosteum, nerves, blood vessels, and cartilage.

Bees are winged insects that form a monophyletic clade Anthophila within the superfamily Apoidea of the order Hymenoptera, with over 20,000 known species in seven recognized families. Some species – including honey bees, bumblebees, and stingless bees – are social insects living in highly hierarchical colonies, while over 90% of bee species – including mason bees, carpenter bees, leafcutter bees, and sweat bees – are solitary. Members of the most well-known bee genus, Apis (i.e. honey bees), are known to construct hexagonally celled waxy nests called hives.

Unlike the closely related wasps and ants, who are carnivorous/omnivorous, bees are herbivores that specifically feed on nectar (nectarivory) and pollen (palynivory), the former primarily as a carbohydrate source for metabolic energy, and the latter primarily for protein and other nutrients for their larvae. They are found on every continent except Antarctica, and in every habitat on the planet that contains insect-pollinated flowering plants. The most common bees in the Northern Hemisphere are the Halictidae, or sweat bees, but they are small and often mistaken for wasps or flies. Bees range in size from tiny stingless bee species, whose workers are less than 2 millimeters (0.08 in) long, to the leafcutter bee Megachile pluto, the largest species of bee, whose females can attain a length of 39 millimeters (1.54 in). Vertebrate predators of bees include primates and birds such as bee-eaters; insect predators include beewolves and dragonflies.

A beehive is an enclosed structure in which honey bees raise their young and produce honey as part of their seasonal cycle. Although the word beehive is used to describe the nest of any bee colony, scientific and professional literature distinguishes nest from hive. Nest is used to discuss colonies that house themselves in natural or artificial cavities or in structures that are hanging and exposed. The term hive is used to describe a man made structure created to house a honey bee colony. While species of Apis live in colonies, the western (Apis mellifera) and eastern honey bees (Apis cerana) are the main species kept in artificial beehives.

The hive's internal structure is a densely packed group of hexagonal prismatic cells made of beeswax, called a honeycomb. The bees use the cells to store food (honey and pollen) and to house the brood (eggs, larvae, and pupae).

Beeswax (also known as cera alba) is a natural wax produced by honey bees of the genus Apis. The wax is formed into scales by eight wax-producing glands in the abdominal segments of worker bees, which discard it in or at the hive. The hive workers collect and use it to form cells for honey storage and larval and pupal protection within the beehive. Chemically, beeswax consists mainly of esters of fatty acids and various long-chain alcohols.

Beeswax has been used since prehistory as the first plastic, as a lubricant and waterproofing agent, in lost wax casting of metals and glass, as a polish for wood and leather, for making candles, as an ingredient in cosmetics and as an artistic medium in encaustic painting.

Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several species of bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primarily floral nectar) or the secretions of other insects, like the honeydew of aphids. This refinement takes place both within individual bees, through regurgitation and enzymatic activity, and during storage in the hive, through water evaporation that concentrates the honey's sugars until it is thick and viscous.

Honey bees stockpile honey in the hive. Within the hive is a structure made from wax called honeycomb. The honeycomb is made up of hundreds or thousands of hexagonal cells, into which the bees regurgitate honey for storage. Other honey-producing species of bee store the substance in different structures, such as the pots made of wax and resin used by the stingless bee.

Graphene (/ˈɡræfiːn/) is a variety of the element carbon which occurs naturally in small amounts. In graphene, the carbon forms a sheet of interlocked atoms as hexagons one carbon atom thick. The result resembles the face of a honeycomb. When many hundreds of graphene layers build up, they are called graphite.

Commonly known types of carbon are diamond and graphite. In 1947, the Canadian physicist P. R. Wallace suggested carbon could also exist in sheets. The German chemist Hanns-Peter Boehm and coworkers isolated single sheets from graphite, giving them the name graphene in 1986. In 2004, the material was characterized by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov at the University of Manchester, England. They received the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for their experiments.

Pocket gophers, commonly referred to simply as gophers, are burrowing rodents of the family Geomyidae. The roughly 41 species are all endemic to North and Central America. They are commonly known for their extensive tunneling activities and their ability to damage farms and gardens.

The name "pocket gopher" on its own may refer to any of a number of genera within the family Geomyidae. These are the "true" gophers, but several ground squirrels in the distantly related family Sciuridae are often called "gophers", as well. The origin of the word "gopher" is uncertain; the French gaufre, meaning "waffle", has been suggested, on account of the gopher tunnels resembling the honeycomb-like pattern of holes in a waffle. Some sources suggest a Muskogean origin of the name.

Tabulata, commonly known as tabulate corals, is a class of extinct corals.They are almost always colonial, forming colonies of individual hexagonal cells known as corallites defined by a skeleton of calcite, similar in appearance to a honeycomb. Adjacent cells are joined by small pores. Their distinguishing feature is their well-developed horizontal internal partitions (tabulae) within each cell, but reduced or absent vertical internal partitions (septa). They are usually smaller than rugose corals, but vary considerably in shape, from flat to conical to spherical.

Around 300 species have been described. Among the most common tabulate corals in the fossil record are Aulopora, Favosites, Halysites, Heliolites, Pleurodictyum, Sarcinula and Syringopora. Tabulate corals with massive skeletons often contain endobiotic symbionts, such as cornulitids and Chaetosalpinx.

Wax foundation or honeycomb base is a plate made of wax forming the base of one honeycomb. It is used in beekeeping to give the bees a foundation on which they can build the honeycomb. Wax foundation is considered one of the most important inventions in modern beekeeping.

Comb honey is honey intended for consumption by humans, which is still contained within its original hexagonal-shaped beeswax cells, called honeycomb. It has received no processing, filtering, or manipulation, and is in the state that honey bees have produced it.

Before the invention of the honey extractor almost all honey produced was in the form of comb honey. Today, most honey is produced for extraction but comb honey remains popular among consumers both for eating 'as is' and for combining with extracted honey to make chunk honey. Hobbyists and sideliners can develop their beekeeping skills by producing comb honey, which takes more rigorous attention to beekeeping than the production of extracted honey. Because of the more demanding labor involved, comb honey has greater retail value than extracted honey ($25-$35/pound compared to $10-$18/pound). Comb honey production is more suitable for areas with an intense prolonged honey flow from eucalyptus, alfalfa, alsike, and yellow clover. Wooded areas are not as suitable for comb honey production, as bees tend to collect more propolis, making the harvesting of comb honey more difficult. This problem has been largely circumvented with the adoption of specialized frames, such as the Ross Round frame, which prevent accumulation of propolis on saleable units.