The cells of the combs of Apis mellifera are tilted upwards by approximately 13°. The literature says that this tilt serves to prevent the outflow of honey. We checked this by hanging empty honeycombs upside down into beehives. Honey was stored in these inverted honeycombs in the same way as in the normally oriented combs, and inverted combs were also well accepted for rearing the brood. We thus show that the benefit for the bees of the upward tilt of the cells is not to prevent leakage of honey. Honey is obviously in a Wenzel state on the hydrophobic, micro-structured cell walls. The associated wetting of the cell wall causes adhesion that prevents leakage. We propose that the benefit of the inclination of the cells is to direct about 10% of the weight of cell contents onto the midwall, thus increasing the carrying capacity of the comb.

中文翻译：

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蜂窝单元向上倾斜，增加了梳子的承载能力，并不是为了防止蜂蜜流出

蜜蜂蜂巢的细胞向上倾斜约 13°。文献说这种倾斜有助于防止蜂蜜流出。我们通过将空蜂窝倒挂在蜂箱中来检查这一点。蜂蜜以与正常定向的蜂巢相同的方式储存在这些倒置的蜂巢中，倒置的蜂巢也被广泛接受用于育雏。因此，我们表明细胞向上倾斜对蜜蜂的好处不是防止蜂蜜泄漏。蜂蜜在疏水的微结构细胞壁上显然处于温泽尔状态。细胞壁的相关润湿导致防止渗漏的粘附。我们建议细胞倾斜的好处是将细胞内容物的大约 10% 的重量引导到中间壁上，从而增加梳子的承载能力。