Honeybees adapt to a range of comb cell sizes by merging, tilting, and layering their construction

Honeybees are renowned for their skills in building intricate and adaptive combs that display notable variation in cell size. However, the extent of their adaptability in constructing honeycombs with varied cell sizes has not been thoroughly investigated. We use 3D-printing and X-ray microscopy to quantify honeybees' capacity in adjusting the comb to different initial conditions. Our findings suggest three distinct comb construction modes in response to foundations with varying sizes of 3D-printed cells. For smaller foundations, bees occasionally merge adjacent cells to compensate for the reduced space. However, for larger cell sizes, the hive uses adaptive strategies such as tilting for foundations with cells up to twice the reference size and layering for cells that are three times larger than the reference cell. Our findings shed light on honeybees adaptive comb construction abilities, significant for the biology of self-organized collective behavior, as well as for bio-inspired engineered systems.