Biomimicry

Study of 'Apis Mellifera' for biomimicry

Biomimicry is a practice that absorbs, learns and mimics from various strategies used by species in nature. Nature uses regeneration, restoring and reusing instead of discarding. Taking inspiration from nature, we can create conditions conducive to life. Nature has strategies of life which we can learn and adopt, as an alternative to reinvention. Biomimicry is a strategy about valuing and interpreting what we learn from nature, not what we can perform, interpret and harvest. Biomimicry in itself is a process, extracting from natural organisms and their processes for highlighting innovation. Nature is the most sustainable way of life, whereby the output from its system is usually beneficial to everything around it. Nature teaches survival of the fittest. Biomimicry is an approach to innovation seeking. While ‘Biomorphosis’ is looking like nature, ‘Biomimetics’ is working like nature.

Apis mellifera, most commonly known as honey bees, have built a smart system for living - the beehive. Beehives are capable of building their own energy for functioning of the whole community which enables and produces renewable energy for the entire ecoregion. Honeybees are social beings, always exchanging information with other bees for survival of the hive. For producing a single pound of honey, requires roughly two million bee-loads of pollen. Honeybees have velcro-like hair on their bodies, which are used for collecting pollen. They nibble their bodies over flowers so that pollen is stuck upon their bodies which can be carried to the beehive. While collecting pollen, a few of the pollens hover over their eyes. These are wiped off using wiper eyes, for clear vision. Nectar is used for extracting honey. Honey is a food supply with high concentration of sugar, which is built for storing bee food for a long period of time, especially winters.

Honeycombs are structures in which they store their amber nectar. They are marvels of precision engineering, an array of prism-shaped cells with a wonderfully hexagonal cross-section. The wax walls are made with a really precise thickness, the cells are gently tilted from the horizontal to stop the viscous honey from running out, and therefore the entire comb is aligned with the Earth’s magnetic flux. Honeybees build the beehive using tessellations of circles, which are stretched into hexagons. For keeping the beehive cool, honey bees flap their wings collectively in order to produce heat, which results in evaporation of moisture so that the hive is kept cool.

Honey bees are social creatures. They live within colonies with a queen, thousands of workers and a couple of male drones. Worker bees make these nests from wax, which they secrete from their abdominal glands. Male drones are ejected from the nest to die during autumn after they complete their only task in life: to mate with queens.

Honey bees are able to sting only once. Because stingers contain barbs which are attached to the worker's intestines, they detach from the stinging bee's body after attacking a victim. The venom sac is a part of the bee’s body. While a honey bee will die soon after transferring its venom sac to the victim’s body, pheromones secreted during the attack shall alarm and stimulate other worker bees to attack. The venom sac is left behind after the sting, which keeps on releasing venom.

Honeybees are smart creatures with exceptional intelligence in communicating and learning information. They are experts in creating a trail of information for communicating with fellow bees. Honeybees do the waggle dance to inform their fellow bees about pollen and nectar, construction of the hive, danger from prey and mating processes. Honeybees come back to the hive and engage actively in sharing information. This process is repeated to have a shared community learning for future survival.

Humans have been sparking innovation by getting inspiration from honeybees and their survival methods. Various strategies can be used for information learning, food storage techniques and for the future of agriculture. Honeybees help in spreading pollen, thus co existing with humans to improve their agricultural yields. Similarly, we can adopt these methodologies for improving agricultural harvesting methods. Temperature control techniques performed by honeybees to maintain optimum climatic conditions in the beehive are unique from the processes used in the present. Processes inspired from nature can assist in replacing old techniques with sustainable methods. Taking inspiration from the honeybee’s wings and flight, efficiency of wind turbines can be improved. By commercialising this, efficiency to produce power can improve as well as produce a feasible alternative as green technology to the current use of fossil fuels. Taking inspiration from honeybee’s field of vision and swift landing, drones can be improvised. The beehive has an exceptionally functional structure, which can inspire innovation in tent structures for military personnel as well as camping. The tents can be temperature regulated, as performed by honey bees. Every part of the beehive is useful for consumption to humans. Honey, bee wax, royal jelly and bee lining are used for consumption and treatment. Honeybee’s defence mechanism can be used in defence and military.

Earth has a self-correcting mechanism where humans are temporary. Nature triggers parallel evolution and co-existence. It conducts a symbiotic synergy where the analogy is to share properties. It has an abstraction where sharp edges grow to become organic. Nature has symmetry and asymmetry which exploits accumulated evolutionary wisdom in biological forms. Design is about change and evolution. Nature and design co exist, to try out what is best.