Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 1.1.
A colony of honey bees engaged in the construction of wax comb.
Photo by Jacob Sahertian.
time save costly building materials? And, as he pointed out, “this is ef-
fected by a crowd of bees working in a dark hive” (Darwin 1998, pp. 348-
349). How could they achieve this architectural masterpiece with in-
stincts alone, working without any central control of construction tasks?
Darwin experimented with honey bees and demonstrated to his satis-
faction that bees could construct combs using just their instincts and
local information regarding cell construction, thereby solving his di-
lemma of perfection and instincts.
h e Nobel Laureate poet, playwright, and author Maurice Maeter-
linck was also fascinated by social insects. In his wonderfully romantic
topic
h e Life of the Bee,
originally published in 1901, he noted that there
was no central control of cooperative behavior, thought by many to be
the domain of the queen, and stated, “She is not the queen in the sense
in which men use the word. She issues no orders; she obeys, as meekly as
the humblest of her subjects, the masked power, sovereignly wise, that
