After half a lifetime as a schoolteacher, my grandmother retired and promptly became a beekeeper. I spent large chunks of my childhood observing these extraordinary creatures, but no part of their intricately orchestrated existence mesmerized me more than the tiny, perfect cells of their hives — rows and rows of hexagons that would make Euclid proud, each exactly like the next, filled with ancient sweet goodness. Indeed, as lyrical as bees’ role in giving Earth its colors may be, or in offering a metaphor for answering every parent’s most dreaded question, they are also mathematicians of formidable precision and masterful engineers of space-efficiency.

From my friends at TED-Ed comes this illuminating animated look at why and how bees build the mathematically meticulous hexagons of which their honeycombs are constructed.

For more fantastic TED Ed animated meditations, see how melancholy expands our capacity for creativity, how the universe was born, how big infinity really is, and the tell-tale signs of a liar.