Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
and the lower central part of the comb will contain the brood (Figure 1.3,
lower panel). Colonies regulate the amount of pollen, as Jennifer Fewell
and Mark Winston showed. h ey added pollen to colonies and then
looked at the ef ects on pollen foraging and the amount of pollen brought
into the hive (intake). Colonies reduced the intake of pollen until they
consumed the extra pollen. When pollen was removed from colonies, pol-
len intake increased until the level of stored pollen was restored.
In addition to the social and nest structures, there is also a struc-
tured division of labor. Aristotle pointed this out more than 2,300 years
ago (Figure 1.4). He noticed that bees that foraged had less body hair
Figure 1.4.
In
Historia animalium,
Aristotle proposed that there was an
age-based division of labor where older bees cared for brood inside the nest and
younger bees foraged. h is was due to his anthropocentric view of puberty. In
humans, young people have less pubescence than older people (but then we need
to consider “much” older people). However, in bees it is the opposite. Young bees
are very pubescent; their thorax is covered by branched hairs. As they age, the
hairs break of and are not replaced. Drawing by Sabine Deviche. Used with
permission from the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie Der Wissenschat en,
Page RE, h e “spirit of the hive” and how a superorganism evolves, 513-532, 2010.
