Mechanisms of Social Organization: Commentary

Abstract

The social life of honeybees harbors many more secrets than those already discovered since more than 100 years of extensive work. How shall we proceed uncovering these secrets? This will depend strongly on how we think about the mental capacities of the individual as a member of the community. It appears to me that we acknowledge a rather high level of neural functions when considering the honeybee’s individual behavior, e.g. when it is foraging, navigating, handling flowers, or deciding between options outside the hive. Yet, when looking into the hive and analyzing the bees’ behavior in a collective context, a single bee suddenly becomes a rather stereotyped element whose behavior is predominantly controlled by innate sensory-motor links.