Cultivated Intelligence

Abstract

The temperature of the brood nest is a controlling factor in the self-constructed environment with which bees influence the characteristics of their future sisters.

Organisms are exposed to the uncertain influence of their environment. Amphibians suffer from dryness, birds from lack of food, butterflies from the cold. The freedom to move provides most animals with the possibility of avoiding unfavorable situations, and searching for better conditions. Amphibians bury themselves in the earth; birds change their locality, and in extreme cases as for migratory birds, their continent; butterflies select sunny places. The environment provides possibilities from which animals choose the best solution. Selection ensures that species that have found an appropriate solution survive, whereas those that do not vanish completely.