Honeybees (Apis mellifera) are insects living in colonies with a complex social organization.
Their nest contains food stores in the form of honey and pollen, as well as the brood, the …

Living things are organized in a hierarchy of levels. Genes group together in cells, cells
group together in organisms, and organisms group together in societies. Even different …

This review summarizes and evaluates the available information on honeybee nestmate
recognition. Nestmate recognition is the ability of members of a colony to discriminate …

Social insects have high levels of cooperation and division of labor. In bumble bees this is
partly size-based, with larger bees performing tasks outside the nest and smaller bees …

Restricted reproduction is traditionally posited as the defining feature of eusocial insect
workers. The discovery of worker reproduction in foreign colonies challenges this view and …

When a honeybee (Apis spp.) colony loses its queen and is unable to rear a new one, some
of the workers activate their ovaries and produce eggs. When a colony has a queen (ie, it is …

Stable social groups usually consist of families. However, recent studies have revealed
higher level social structure, with interactions between family groups across different levels …

Honey bees without any doubt are humans' favorite and most studied social insect, along
with 20,000 other known bee species, most of them having social behavior. Different bee …

Background The impact of social parasites on their hosts' fitness is a strong selective
pressure that can lead to the evolution of adapted defence strategies. Guarding the nest to …

Drifting, the phenomenon whereby workers from one colony find their way into a foreign
colony, is widespread in social insects. In apiaries of the honey bee Apis mellifera …