Honeycomb Honeycomb A honeycomb is a mass of hexagonal prismatic wax cells built by honey bees in their nests to contain their larvae and stores of honey and pollen. Beekeepers may remove the entire honeycomb to harvest honey. Honey bees consume about 8.4 lb (3.8 kg) of honey to secrete 1 lb (454 g) of wax, so it makes economic sense to return the wax to the hive after harvesting the honey. The structure of the comb may be left basically intact when honey is extracted from it by uncapping and spinning in a centrifugal machine—the honey extractor. If the honeycomb
Simplectic honeycomb an "n-simplex honeycomb" is an expanded n-simplex. In 2 dimensions, the honeycomb represents the triangular tiling, with Coxeter graph filling the plane with alternately colored triangles. In 3 dimensions it represents the tetrahedral-octahedral honeycomb, with Coxeter graph filling space with alternately tetrahedral and octahedral cells. In 4 dimensions it is called the 5-cell honeycomb, with Coxeter graph , with 5-cell and rectified 5-cell facets. In 5 dimensions it is called the 5-simplex honeycomb, with Coxeter graph , filling space by 5-simplex, rectified 5-simplex, and birectified 5-simplex facets. In 6 dimensions it is called the 6-simplex honeycomb, with Coxeter graph ,