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Although honey bees are insects that domesticate, they can not be tamed. A successful apiculture
requires to understand the so called »Bien« - bee colony super organism, where honey bees live in community.
This community has developed skills, which are not mastered the individual bee. Here is just one example: Although being insects
they are cold-blooded animals, they can constantly maintain the temperature in the group like a warm blooded animal. This
community is often referred to as a colony, nation or family. However, it is organized quite differently. For such communities
the term »Bien« has been established.
In the 20th century, the term »super organism« was introduced for the developed communities of ants and bees. The bee community
is composed of individual organisms. It coordinates its individual activities via signal substances, similar to an organism.
Individual bees and specialized groups are viable only as the whole community. However genetically, the individual bees represent
no organism.
The bee-keeper Johannes Mehring (1815-1878) compared the »bien« to a vertebrate. The worker bees are the digestive tool.
As an example: The Queen is the female and the drones are the male sexual organ. For him, the one being was more than the sum of its
parts. It was a closed system, consisted of bees, combs and stocks.
The beekeeper Ferdinand Gerstung (1860-1925) developed the notion of the organism »bien«, building up on the ideas
of Mehring. From his point of view, it also consists of mere organs such as plant and animal organisms. Because the organs of the »biens«
do not emerge from an egg and unlike in other organisms, they are not are grown together with each other, he insisted on extending the
definition of organism. He recognized that the concept of an organism do not fully fir with »the bien«, but he did not found
the more appropriate one.
Quelle:
wikipedia.org/wiki/Superorganism
Meli Malisiova
apiculture | agriculture
