Chicken Wire

Chicken wire is a a sheet of thin, flexible galvanised steel wire weaved together to form hexagonal gaps. It is used for a variety of thing such as pens to hold, or keep out, small animals and construction. 

Charles Barward, a British ironmonger, built the first wire-netting machine in 1844 and based his design on cloth weaving machines. 

During WW1, the wire that was being used for chicken wire was repurposed for large wire ground mats for radar systems to even out the random reflections caused from uneven ground. In WW2 it was put on helmets of the German soldiers to help camouflage them with plants and branches. 

Chicken wire, by itself is relatively weak, it can easily be bent, cut or deformed, however when used together with other materials, such as glass or concrete, it can make the material a lot stronger. Chicken wire glass was invented as a safety measure during the industrial revolution. These panes of glass were often used overhead in factories as the mesh prevented shards of glass from falling on workers below, as the wire helps distribute the heat and vibrations that would cause regular glass to shatter. 

I feel like, in a way, beeswax is similar to chicken wire. On its own (as a lump of beeswax) it is relatively weak, it softens at human body temperature (37°) and melts at 62°. When it's cold, it is brittle and its fracture is dry and granular. These properties are not helpful to the bees at all, it is only when it is formed into honeycomb and is in the hive that it becomes helpful. The arrangement of the beeswax into the honeycomb shape allows it to have thermal insulation properties, dissipating and transferring heat into or out of the hive. The action of the bees inside also means that the wax never gets cold enough to become brittle and break apart. The honeycomb also acts as storage for honey and cradles for their young. 

These properties of the chicken wire and its similarities with honeycomb led me to want to use it in my project. At this point, I thought, what better subject to create out of chicken wire than bees! Create an animal out of the material that replicates what bees themselves make.