Even bees say socializing is a waste of energy.

For us, bees are very much like humans, both highly cooperative social species. However, just as there are withdrawn people in human society, are there antisocial individuals in the honeybee world?

Do gregarious bees have unsociable individuals? Picture: Pixabay

The social complexity of bees can be seen in their intricate hives. They have a fine division of labor, some are responsible for defending predators, some are responsible for coordinating resource collection, and so on. To a large extent, human success can also be attributed to this social division of labor. Obviously, in the animal kingdom, socializing is good: some neurons make us hate being alone. If you think that complex social organizations are the pinnacle of evolution, or at least one of them, that's understandable.

However, of the 20,000 known species of honeybees, only a few are social. Some species of bees even give up social behavior and choose to live alone. Why is this?

Socializing. I'm so tired.

First of all, introverts are well aware that socializing requires a lot of energy. The highly complex insect society requires a large number of chemical and physical signals to guide cluster behavior.

Compared with honeybees living alone, social honeybees have more developed exocrine glands, while solitary honeybees have fewer sensory hairs on their antennae than their social ancestors. Tunnel bees living alone and in groups also have different odor systems, which are very important in the communication and identification of social bees. As the environment puts forward new requirements, and the colony's genome adapts to the new environment, these characteristics may not be worth staying.

Orderly cluster life consumes a lot of energy. Picture: Pixabay

Socializing, affecting independence

On the other hand, socializing may hinder the growth of bees, and sometimes bees have to grow rapidly in order to survive.

Researchers at Whitman College in Washington found that the newly hatched antisocial fruit tree wallbee (Osmia lignaria) is responsible for foraging brain areas as well as those of bees with rich foraging experience. Antisociality encourages self-sufficiency. Fruit tree wallbees have to take care of themselves. They are born to know how to find food. For social bees, only some of the bees in the colony need to go out to look for food at a certain time.

Lonely fruit tree wall wasp. Picture: Brian Buckner

Antisocial, where does it come from?

How do solitary species from social species evolve these advantages? After all, antisociality, along with other stressors, may mean the disintegration of the entire colony. Why? In this case, the colony needs more social bees to maintain itself, and the number of bees that can carry stably is also reduced. In other words, the increase in the number of antisocial bees can no longer keep the colony alive. As a result, antisocial bees are not entirely beneficial.

The multifaceted nature of social behavior is a possible answer. Sweat wasp (Halictus rubicundus) is a kind of insect attracted by sweat, and its ancestor is a social honeybee of the family Cerambycidae. Sweat bees have both solitary species and social species in Europe. Bees living in different environments behave differently: sweat bees prefer to form colonies in warm climates, while in cold environments, they prefer to act alone.

Female sweat bees. Picture: linsepatron / Flickr

It turns out that even in a highly cooperative colony, antisocial individuals still exist, and other bees in the colony seem to tolerate them. If some withdrawn bees find that isolated behavior is an advantage in their new environment, such as a short growth period and bees need to act without a task assignment, then an antisocial species will rise.

Changes in host plants can also lead to social bees returning to solitary behavior. The living environment and needs of honeybees are different, and it is usually more advantageous to collect pollen from a single plant in the state of the colony, and the whole activity of the colony can be coordinated around constant resources. Withdrawn bees are usually omnipotent and move among all kinds of plants.

Collecting a single plant is more advantageous than collecting a variety of plants. Picture: Pixabay

Sociality is not the pinnacle of evolution, but another result of the evolutionary process. Solitary bees and other solitary species do well, sometimes even better than in groups. Obviously, social behavior has its advantages, which may improve the survival chances of species and populations.

But socializing is not the only thing that benefits the group. Sometimes, when you act alone, everyone benefits. (author: Silvia Golumbeanu; compilation: sun Runsong; proofreading: EON)

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This article was first published in the fruit shell network. I am a scientist iScientist.