A world of honeycombs and cells

To produce honey, the bee-keeper rears bees inside a beehive, which is composed of a series of vertical wax honeycombs. Each honeycomb is made of hexagonal cells called alveoli, that bees use to rear the hatch and to keep the stores of honey and pollen. In late spring, when nectar is abundant, the bee-keeper puts a honey super on the top of the beehive. This reservoir is separated from the honeycombs that lie underneath it by a grating that keeps out only the queen-bee. This insures that those cells will only be used to store honey.

When the honey is ready, the bees close the single cells with a wax seal. Their instinct tells them never to stop collecting, to prepare for a bad season or winter even though these may be far in the future. The bee-keeper knows this and he takes the excess honey they have collected.