There is no distinction between the queen and the colony. They are one biological unit. The queen is short lived without a colony and the colony is short lived without a queen. In some cases the one can produce the other before complete collapse.

It is a monarchy in the Arthurian sense. Arthur and the land mirror each other. As one suffers so does the other.

genetically, the hive works for the queen.

In response to your original question, I would say "neither." Eusocial insect species have great variety in social structures. I agree that the colony is a complete biological unit. Ultimately the colony is an extension of the queen. It requires a queen and workers, and in many (perhaps all) eusocial insects, the individual cannot survive without the colony. However, there is often a great deal of conflict within a hive. I suppose I would classify eusocial insects in the monarchy category, but perhaps some investigation of the within-hive conflict could refine your comparison. For example, workers may attempt to reproduce on their own. In this case, the queen may use pheromones to suppress reproduction, or may actually consume or destroy eggs laid by workers. For some species, a hive may contain multiple queens (a polygyne hive), with each queen competing for  reproduction. For honey bees, if a queen is not reproducing, workers may raise new larvae to become queens and overthrow the old queen. With honey bees especially, it seems that the workers have a very prominent role in "deciding" the actions of the hive.

Dear Leonardo

Any reply for this discussion will be reflect the rules adopted in human community, or experts got their experiances from human events, because all information about bees and ants collected from observations for behaviour in bees and ants comunities, and the structure of these communities, but not their thoughts and ideas.

Good Luck

The thinking on this has changed over time. Currently a more "self-organizing" idea of the beehive and ant colony exists. In the past the queen was seen as a "ruler." As others have mentioned in these answers, the queen may still have some influence on workers, however they are also believed to be completing tasks through self-organization. For more on the history of how the queen and worker have been viewed or how the idea of self -organization was adopted as an explanation of structure see:

Rodgers, Diane M. 2008. Debugging the Link Between Social Theory and Social Insects. Louisiana State University Press.

Rodgers, Diane M. 2012. “Busy as a Bee or Unemployed?: Shifting Scientific Discourse on Work” Minerva 50 (1): 45-64.

Rodgers, Diane M. 2012.“The Socially Constructed Natural Origins of Self-Organization,” pp. 753-774 in Origin(s) of Design in Nature edited by L. Swan, R. Gordon & J. Seckbach. Dordrecht: Springer.

It is a fascinating question that has social and cultural influences to the answer!

I think the existing names are "good." Their advantage is that they are familiar and people easily relate to them. The problem is that people sometimes try to draw parallels between human political systems and eusocial insects.

Changing the name to reflect their role will cause two problems. Firstly, people are not familiar with the new names. This is a problem for both scientists and non-scientists who must communicate with each other to get policy (laws) enacted. Secondly, the names would become long. There is no insect that is just "egg-layer." It might be "disperser, colony founder, egg-layer" and some insects would then either have a long name or their name would change as they age: so "worker" would become "cell-cleaner, undertaker, nurse, attendant to queen, provisioner, cooler, waxer, defender, forager." This is just awkward.

When the colony is at it's early stage the queen works for the workers but as the colony gets older the workers work's for both the queen and the anthill.

They do these as instinct.

It is beneficial for their whole species.

We may describe such work according to our concept, as most of us are not ready to do any such things for benefit of our species.

We are just do things for ourselves.

Rather, we do many things selfishly against existence of our own species in the world!

The system of bees or ants is a model of cooperation in the multi-interaction system. It is often used in different disciplines as a foundation of algorithms to solve optimization problems. See for example the description of the artificial bee colony algorithm:

http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Artificial_bee_colony_algorithm

To answer the question directly, I consider the bee colony as a model of cooperation regardless of the nature of interactions in the system.

The ability of the colony to survive depends, however, mainly on worker bees; this is evident after analysis of Colony Collapse Disorder occurring when the significant number of worker bees disappears, leaving behind queen, supply of food and a few nursing bees to care for the immature bees.

Agree with the views expressed by RG colleagues. The behaviour of bees and ants reflect as constructive cooperation with queen being the binding force and / or say attractor.

The good thing is that the bees are not humans, which profess higher order thinking but doing something lower which destroy their livelihood because of what the question says, for whom do you work. The bees work for the collective well being of the colony and if they were communicating with us and see this question and feel the way the question indicates, they might start rebelling and start not to work which will make them shelterless and die. Our terms of describing things have weights by themselves on our psyche and bees do not need to have that kind of lexicography for their collective wellbeing.

This is a good question. In addition to the very helpful responses already given, there is a bit more to add.

A good overview of bee colony organization is given by Kathryn J. Montovana , Nathaniel Karstb , Laura E. Jonesc , Thomas D. Seeley in

Local behavioral rules sustain the cell allocation pattern in the combs of honey bee colonies (Apis mellifera)

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1211.4298.pdf

Queen movement and egg laying are covered in Section 2.2, starting on p. 7. The roles of pollen foragers and honey storers are described in Section 2.3, starting on p. 9. In terms of the discussion for this thread, these two sections provide lots of helpful grist for the mill.

The mathematics of honey bee colony dynamics is given in

Seasonal Effects on Honey Bee Population Dynamics: a Nonautonomous System of Difference Equations

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1708.09416.pdf

This paper gives an overview of the caste system in a honeybee colony with a distinction made between hive bees and foreagers. More to the point, from this report it is apparent that the workers do everything they can to ensure the survival of the queen.

The worker bees are responsible for everything else: gathering nectar, guarding the hive and honey, caring for the queen and larvae, keeping the hive clean, and producing honey. Most ants are females, and nearly every ant encountered outside of the nest is a female. Worker ants are females, but unlike the queen, they don't lay eggs.

The community is integrated and governed by pheromones and surrounding environmental conditions

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Cannizzaro & readers,

This is an interesting question and we have already seen some good answers from experts on insects.

I'm inclined to say that however useful and conventional the terms may be, "queen" and "worker" are basically suggestive analogies to human sociality. Though human beings are, in a sense, social animals, they are not social animals in the sense that bees or ants are. Among the hive insects, one might be inclined to the view that the "queen" and "workers" are merely (spatially-) distributed organs of the hive or colony --just because they cannot long exist one without the other--as remarked above. The hive or colony approaches the status of being the individual organism. I suspect one has to learn to think of these things as a matter of degree. Nature contains near infinite variety.

The human proclivity for living in groups might better be compared to that of the lions living in "prides" --in contrast to most great cats which are basically lone hunters, meeting up only to breed and reproduce and maintaining social units --mother and cubs--only for rearing of the young. With the lions, the dominant males stay around, along with younger males --for a time. Its somewhat similar with the great apes, of course.

In addition, among humans we have all sorts of highly developed political systems, culturally and intellectually mediated. We argue and debate about the variations and differences; and that is perhaps the most important disanalogy of human sociality with that of "social" insects.

H.G. Callaway

Bees are a female communist dictatorship, with the super-powerful queen trapped in her bunker. No princes, no priest, no movies. Happily, they have medicinal plants to get drunk once a year.

Bees only work for the benefit of their beehive. Queen is the part of Beehive.

Dear Dr Leonardo Cannizzaro

Fascinating question.

We always think about the beautiful organization of ants and bees, but I never thought about the "awareness" of them. Are they "aware if" they are working for the community or for the Queen?

We think they are working for both, of course, because we are aware of the amplitude of the results of work. But, are they???

Fascinating question. Congrats!

I will keep following!

They are not aware in the same way that we are aware. They do not think or feel in the same way that we do. That does not mean they are mindless robots. They can learn. They can communicate with each other. If you get too close to the hive they try to communicate with you to get you to go away. They will only sting you if you ignore their request or if you accidentally hurt one of them.

Evolution does not advance towards genetic variation. Mutations increase genetic diversity. Evolution weeds out the variations that are less successful. Evolution can just as easily reduce genetic diversity. Think of fish living in caves that have no eyes.

The individuals within a colony are genetically equivalent. The individuals between colonies are not.

Brain size is not relevant. Human brains weigh about 1.2 kg, while a sperm whale brain is about six time larger. This proves nothing.

To those who say bees do not think, rethink again. Infact bees are among the mathematical creatures nature has. Their honey comb is a six sided polygonal structure that has the maximum capacity from among all other structures of the same around surface areas. They do not choose tringulars, rectangular, or pentagonals, but hexagonal. That is purely mathematical. I can add one more here on the mathematical nature of nature that we learn from. Seagals catch their prey breath them in oceans not by directly flying to them but by choosing a path called brachistochron, the fastest path, which is a curved path that expedites time, not distance. Nature is more mathematical than we humans. We are students of nature.

Wonderful question and great answers

Complex things can be built from simple outcomes. For example, at its core the computer that I am using knows only on versus off. That is it.

Some behaviors are programmed and the bees do not have free will in all things. There is no Da Vinci of bees who will make triangular, circular, and square comb. However, just because they cannot choose comb cell shape does not mean they are stupid mindless robots. Some bees make round holes: leaf cutter bees for example. However, round holes do not pack efficiently. There are voids. The hexagonal comb eliminates those voids. Triangles pack efficiently, but the 60 degree angle might be more difficult for a larva and workers to clean the cell.

Its a symbiant relationship which works well both ways, neither can exist without other to achieve survival level. But also an autocratic where you have no choice to rebel or switch. Thats nature way to get desired goals. Not very helpful to project in human social sphere as nature did provide a higher brain and free will to still achieve desired goals. What those goals and if they are survivalist will mirror on whether our natural course of depleting resources and forming complex and organized mechanisms of way of life will lead to where.

On one way we are destructive to nature but we are doing what nature empowered us to, evolve to survive extinction , in technology.

That goes too far. The social insects do not have civilizations. There is no Byzantine period for the ants. Just no. Queen, drone and worker I can accept because they can be useful terms especially when dealing with non-scientists. There is also a very long history of their use. There are no parallels between an insect colony and human civilizations.

Termites: 163 to 145 mya

https://books.google.com/books?id=Q_-KUDz2-sYC&pg=PA77&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false

Ants: 115 to 135 mya: http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/2007f/zt01668p563.pdf

bees: 45 to 100 mya: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee

A part of the answer depends on which species. Please see the scientific literature to understand the evolutionary history of these organisms.

The colony is one organism composed of many subunits. It is not a group of individuals that come together of their free will for the collective good.

Yes, the social insects are used as models. They also provide useful products like honey, have an inner beauty often used in art, and provide essential ecosystem functions (pollination, pest management, recyclers, food for other creatures).

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/295/5564/2357.full

Article Social insects inspire human design

That they do not conform to our ideas of social hierarchy should not detract from our appreciation of these insects. We should accept what they are.

Ant colony refers to the collections of workers, reproductive individuals, and brood that live together, cooperate, and treat one another non-aggressively. Often this comprises the genetically related progeny from a single queen, although this is not universal across ants.

Human society is different than insects society. Actually human society is a compromise between individuals where each units have its own benefits. Bees or ants do work for the hives, and better to say monarchy or systematic monarchy.

Human have democracy, but due to centralization of capitals - this democracy is a ill developed democracy (due to inequality and unequal opportunities.).

There are human societies, which work for the queen. God Save the Queen is the national or royal anthem in a number of Commonwealth realms, their territories, and the British Crown dependencies. In humans, many societies work also for the king or the Co&Sisters which phenomenon is not present in social insects. The insect Queen mediates the link between environment and evolution.

A “social brain” characterize social insects as bees, ants or termites. We observe a type of social brain in humans in some circumstances and few societies when the ‘social signal’ dominates the feelings of the population, seen in wars, catastrophes, under an emotional imposed control etc. Feel or be as a social insect, could be a dramatic situation in human evolution as the ethical conception of human is switched off. Human is not a number and its social behavior is not viewed by algorithms and statistics.

Hey, this is not my field, but I can't help but wonder whether we are projecting our own evolving social norms, into what animal societies do.

For example, thinking about it nowadays, how totally odd is it, that the people in a kingdom were called the "subjects" of the crown? Really? The King or Queen are the boss, and the loyal subjects must obey? That's how it was, for millennia.

People who tolerated such social orders probably had no trouble projecting their ideas, onto ant hills and beehives.

It can also be more than simple projection. Once an idea about human society is projected, as you say, onto social insects, then that description can be used as a reference to be used that is viewed as "natural" and therefore can naturalize certain social structures and behavior. This can be a distortion in both directions. I discuss it as a "legitimating loop" in my book Debugging the Link between Social Theory and Social Insects.

The insect queen for termites carries genetically identical eggs, which differentiate to workers and soldiers upon environmental conditioning; this is neither natural nor self-organization. It reflects a post-epigenetic mechanism that is under hormonal, bacterial, etc. control. The process reflects a spatial-dependent phenomenon that links genetics to environment so; the environment translates to post-genetics via the queen.

In humans, if the environment influences genetics or class identification, "subjects" will remain "subjects", then we need to accept that the evolution between humans is distinct upon environmental - spatial conditioning.

The queen and the kings will continue to be ‘evolutionary different’ from the oligarchs and from the subjects. We could say this is "natural" and therefore can naturalize certain social structures and behavior or we could call it self-organization versus ‘ruler’ to express a more evolutionary view.

Humans are not social insects and the social cross-talk between a free human and an insect colony keeps on an imposed social status-quo.

The queen bee is the heart and soul of the honey bee colony. She is the reason for nearly everything the rest of the colony does.

I am very surprised to read the general cliché that a population.., here is the case of workers or soldiers, ‘are devoted’ to promote evolution in order to justify a slavery life. Why?

What are the scientific elements explaining that many should work for the few?

How conservative is the idea that many should work for the few to keep on evolution? What is EVOLUTION?

Why not few to work for the many to keep on evolution?? and why we, humans, are so interested for the evolution and continuation of species//?

......When our activities are in general speaking a selfish behavior.

Nature works on an equilibrium. Workers, soldiers, queens are just energetic intermediates of an open system which is constantly on move. I prefer to see the queen and the queen family to work for the subjects.

Let’s not be so conservative< God Save the Queen….. and the Subjects….

Intelligent question! I agree with Dr. Diane. Queens still wield authority, respectable position here in Ghana especially among the royal home of the Asantes.

Honey bees make hives in rock crevices, hollow trees and other areas that scout bees believe are appropriate for their colony. They construct hives by chewing wax until it becomes soft, then bonding large quantities of wax into the cells of a honeycomb. Queen bee" is usually the mother of most, if not all, of the bees in the beehive.

See more information via the link:

https://www.orkin.com/stinging-pests/bees/how-do-honeybees-make-hives/

Something about kin selection whereby the death of a clone (or near clone) can improve the fitness of the remaining clones.

Mixing human behavior and human values into insect survival or vice versa is problematic. The worker bees are not slaves in the same sense as slaves in human societies. If you "free" a honeybee worker from the hive it will not go off to live a happy free life.

This question has really generated a lot of replies! Perhaps we should plan a conference around it! I would be happy to speak from the point of view of a critical theory social scientist who studies social insects. Or maybe an edited volume. It would be fascinating to get a lot of different views on this pulled together beyond this lively discussion. Congrats to Leonardo Cannizzaro for starting this thread.

Anthills are created as a by-product of worker ants.

The queen, of course, is pivotal to everything that happens within a healthy bee hive. With some exceptions, she is the only queen in a colony of honey bees that may number 60,000 or more. The clear majority of the other bees are working to support her egg-laying productivity...

https://www.perfectbee.com/learn-about-bees/the-life-of-bees/role-queen-bee

I believe that the hive is NOT a group of individual in a societal relationship. The hive is a single individual in which bees are the external disjoint organs and members finding their function by way of a single source of instructions in their hormonal distance to the queen. One glandular direction = one individual. They follow a Hobbesian politic in forming a single individual awaiting instructions from the sovereign.

Bees work for beehive but queen bee is the catalyst or the big bang of hive.)

Hello Leonardo; Any resemblance between the social organization of hymenopteran or isopteran colonies and primate societies is purely convergent. We can discuss the selective advantages of traits like division of labor or morphological polymorphism. However, using labels like "democracy" or the like wouldn't be helpful. Trying to "think like an ant" would be helpful. How might a young worker ant think about its role in the colony? She wouldn't! She is responding to diet and pheromone stimuli.

A more productive discussion might revolve around the phenomenon of Kin selection. Cheers, Jim Des Lauriers

A single hormonal source = one individual. All bees and ants are just the dismembered hands , feet and organs of a single individual. Your hands and feet work for who?