Bees Have a Highly-Developed Social Order
| Published: 15th October 2007 10:12 |
The beehive is very well organised. Each bee is engaged in doing a job for the good of the colony. Together they are involved in the joint enterprise of making honey, their main food store for the winter months, when it may be too cold and damp to fly out, and if nectar and pollen are scarce. All the worker bees are half sisters.
The Queen can lay unfertilised eggs that hatch into drones (male bees).
The Queen is fertilised by up to 20 of the strongest and highest flying drones (male bees). Drones have no purpose other than fertilising the Queen. After they have done this task, they do not bother to feed themselves, and are pushed away from the hive by worker bees. Drones do no work for the colony.
Drones are pushed away by Worker Bees
Over thousands of years, bees have developed into some of the most well-structures and well-organised communities, in order to survive.
According to the laws of evolution, members of communities that do not contribute to the common good, but simply drain resources from their communities, can end up weakening their communities, which will eventually die out. Survival of communities, species and of all species depends on contributions made by individuals, and the ability of the majority to support non-contributors, and limit damaging behaviour.
Article by Liz Kent.
Community Comment:
Add your comment:
You will need to sign in to post a comment to this article. if you do not have an AboutMyArea account, you can join now for free.
