Die Kunst der Bienen

The Bee Colony – Decoding a Superorganism. The parallels between insect colonies and human societies have intrigued many sociobiologists. The world-leading bee researcher Robert E. Page has been exploring the complex social system and division of labor of honeybees for decades – a "social contract" that is inscribed in their DNA over millions of years. Page examines the co-evolution of bees and flowering plants, viewing them as engineers and landscape architects, and studies honeybee colonies as a superorganism, as well as the mating behavior of queens. A fascinating read for anyone looking to delve deeper into the significance of bees for our world.

In the case of the honeybee, a scenario likely unfolded over millions of years of evolution that looked like this: The earliest species were solitary nesters. Females established a nest, which they excavated from plant stems or perhaps tree trunks, filled the cells with pollen, laid an egg in each one, and then sealed them. The flowering periods may have been short, the larvae developed slowly, and/or the females did not live long, dying before their offspring became adult bees. Later, some species may have migrated to climatic zones with longer flowering periods, where the development of larvae could have accelerated, or the females lived longer, allowing enough time for the brood to hatch and live with their mother in the nest for a while. Some daughters even stayed permanently and cared for their larval sisters. The rest of the story would recount the development of larger nests, the emergence of larger populations of workers, and anatomical differences between queens and workers, and so on.