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Why Ants Do but Honeybees Do Not Construct Satellite Nests

Janet Landa (jlanda@yorku.ca) and Gordon Tullock

Journal of Bioeconomics, 2003, vol. 5, issue 2, 164 pages

Abstract: Synopsis: Ants and honeybees are both social insects that share many characteristics in common. But there is a fundamental difference between ants and bees. Ants can and do construct main nests with satellite nests, whereas bees construct only a main nest with no satellite nests. In this paper we explain the difference between the socio-economic organization of ants and bees: ants can identify nest-mates from satellite nests because ants leave odor trails connecting main nests to satellite nests so that fellow nest-mate from satellite nests smell the same. Bees, on the other hand, cannot leave odor trails in the air, and hence are unable to identify bees from another nest; bees from another nest with different pheromone smells are stung to death by guard bees in the main nest. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2003

Keywords: cooperation; eusociality; ethnic trade networks; identity; institutions; odor paths; path dependency; pheromone; social insects; socio-economic organization; super-colony (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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DOI: 10.1023/A:1025878432739

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