Page 156 - The Miracle of the Honeybee

When three comb cells, whose bases consist of equilateral rhombs, are joined to-
gether, the base of a cell on the opposite side emerges. In this way, the two faces of
the comb are locked together, constituting one single, solid structure. The angles of
these rhombs made by the bees are literally perfect and flawless.

grees 32 minutes, and that they never deviate from these.
This is quite unbelievable! Bees succeed in resolving a
mathematical calculation beyond the reach of all but an ex-
pert.
However, the calculation performed by bees exhibits a deviation of
1/30th of a degree. (One degree consists of 60 minutes. The 2-minute dif-
ference in the angle in the comb corresponds to 1/30th of a degree). In
other words, bees include a margin of error in their combs, even if this is
so small as to be insignificant.
Indeed, on account of this error of 1/30th of a degree, scientists once
thought that bees were unable to achieve a perfect result and only ap-
proached the exact angle, allowing themselves a margin of error. But the
fact is, bees actually make no error at all!
The famous Scottish mathematician Colin Maclaurin (1698-1746) re-
peated the same calculation, and when he announced his result, it stunned
the world of science. Maclaurin had revealed that the angle employed by
bees was totally exact, and that Konig and his team who had carried out
the first study of the honeycomb had arrived at a faulty result, due to an
error in the logarithmic tables they had used.
In short, it was realized that there is not the slightest error in the hon-
eycombs. 136 The so-called 1/30th of a degree error was made by scientists,
not by bees.