University Of New Hampshire Study of Almost-Solitary Bees Reveals Evolutionary Clues to Honeybees’ Social Complexity

“This is exciting and intriguing because it supports the theory that such ‘conserved’ genes may play a relatively consistent and important role in the evolution of sociality across bees, ants and wasps.”

Honeybees have complex social lives, with their queens and workers cooperating to produce honey. But the majority of bee species are solitary: One female mates, gathers provisions, lays eggs and walls them up with food in a secure spot. Recent UNH research into a mostly solitary species that has some social behaviors, the North American carpenter bee, advances understanding of the evolutionary shift from honeybees’ loner ancestors to the social beings they are now.

The subject of Shell’s study, the North American small carpenter bee (Ceratina calcarata), has incipient, or simple, sociality. “For example, instead of departing the nest after laying her eggs, a mother may guard her brood while being supported by just a single working daughter,” says Shell. The incipiently social bee can serve as a stand-in for ancestors of honeybees and other more socially complex bees.

“We know that the honeybees of today evolved from solitary ancestors but we’re still figuring out what biological factors may have contributed to that gradual process.”

The study found that genes associated with foraging and guarding in C. calcarata include those that are associated with the same roles in other social insects such as honeybees.

Read the full story from UNH here.