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
Order-5 dodecahedral honeycomb pentagonal prism vertex figure. There are four rectified compact regular honeycombs: The truncated order-5 dodecahedral honeycomb, , has icosahedron and truncated dodecahedron cells, with a pentagonal pyramid vertex figure. The bitruncated order-5 dodecahedral honeycomb, , has truncated icosahedron cells, with a disphenoid vertex figure. The cantellated order-5 dodecahedral honeycomb, , has alternating rhombicosidodecahedron and icosidodecahedron cells, with a triangular prism vertex figure. The cantitruncated order-5 dodecahedral honeycomb, , has truncated icosidodecahedron, icosidodecahedron, and pentagonal prism cells, with a mirrored sphenoid vertex figure. The runcinated order-5 dodecahedral honeycomb, , has dodecahedron and pentagonal prism cells, with a triangular antiprism vertex figure.