Why Ants Do but Honeybees Do Not Construct Satellite Nests

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