Why is the honey bee colony a superorganism?

Question

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

Question restatement: Why is the honey bee colony considered a superorganism?

Option 1: 'because the queen is a super female that can lay up to 1,500 eggs per day' This focuses on the queen's reproductive capacity, which describes an individual's trait within the colony rather than explaining why the colony functions as a superorganism. It misses the key concept of integration and collective output across many individuals.

Option 2: 'because a honey bee colony is actually made of dozens of smaller cluster of bees that use different parts of the hive and that have different functions' While there is division of labor, the description as 'dozens of smaller clusters' mischaracterizes the colony structure and does not capture the integrated, emergent, collective behavior that defines a superorganism. The emphasis here is on subgroups rather than on integrated whole-colony output.

Option 3: 'because individual actions by thousands of separate bees are integrated into a collective output thus giving a coherent whole to a multitude of bees' This option highlights the core idea of a superorganism: many individual agents performing specialized roles whose actions are coordinated to produce a unified, colony-level result. It reflects emergence, division of labor, communication, and synchronization among workers, drones, and the queen, leading to colony-wide functions such as foraging, brood care, thermoregulation, and defense.

Why the other choices are not correct: The first option overemphasizes a single individual's trait and does not address how the colony functions as an integrated system. The second option misrepresents colony structure by suggesting multiple separate clusters rather than a cohesive, highly integrated network of individuals operating in concert. The third option correctly identifies the integrative process across thousands of bees, which is the hallmark of a superorganism.

In summary, the essence of a superorganism in a honey bee colony lies in the emergence of coherent, colony-wide behavior from the coordinated actions of many individuals, not in any single bee's capabilities or in loosely associated subgroups.

ENTOM2030/ENTOM2031 Post-Lecture 9 Quiz

Why is the honey bee colony a superorganism?

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