But Berseth's breakthrough came from an earlier hive, where the bees built him a remarkable spiral. "I was really happy with that one when I got it open. That was when I realized, Wow, you can sort of break the behavior"-that is, manipulate the bees' instincts about proportion and form. "You can plan out a certain amount of what's going to happen, and then that design will sort of ripple through, and then they'll begin to draw out combs and riff off that design."