Honey Bee Note #6
Johnson, B.R. : Honey Bee Biology, pg 198
insect sociality / superorganisms
says that social physiology, a term used to describe the concept of superorganisms, refer to the mechanisms whereby individual members of a social insect colony coordinate their activities as a group.
Division of labour is a key mechanism which can improve productivity. a foraging bee can only collect nectar and pollen efficiently because it has specialized into knowing where to find quality food sources, and cannot make the most of that knowledge if it then has to take time to process it all into honey and bread on its own, so there are bees that specialize into receiving and storing food which free up the foragers to maximize their productivity.
"Much of [The Wisdom of the Hive, Seeley 1995] pertains to how foragers coordinate their activity with middle-age bees (MABs) im the process of making honey. The foragers collect the nectar and the MABs recieve it, process it into honey, and build the storage space for it. The efforts devoted to the three tasks must be coordinated to achieve efficient functioning at the group level. If too few nectar processors are working, for example, then the nectar foragers cannot unload their nectar and foraging is hampered..." "The foragers, however, did not stand around and wait for things to improve. Instead, they quickly began to produce signals to fix the problem. One such signal is called the tremble dance. The nectar foragers left the dance floor area... and then walked all around in the nest, producing the tremble dance." pg 200