This makes it reasonable to think of the hive as one individual!
Just like we are made of individual cells and organs, an ant hill is made up of individual ants. That the parts can move separately is a fairly superficial difference.
This makes it reasonable to think of the hive as one individual!
Just like we are made of individual cells and organs, an ant hill is made up of individual ants. That the parts can move separately is a fairly superficial difference.
Those numbers are true if a female mates once. Honeybee (Apis spp.) queens that lead successful colonies, for example, typically mate with a dozen or more male partners. This has beneficial genetic effects but is probably done just to satisfy sperm storage requirements since they only perform one mating flight. The result of this is that the thousands of sisters in the hive have many different fathers, reducing the worker-to-worker relatedness.
Bee reproductive setups are really diverse with honey bees at one end, solitary bees at the other, and just about anything else between.
Eusocial species behavior evolved from fully-functioning individual insects (solitary bees and wasps that still exist, for example) as a behavioral adaptation. A human organ is not a self-surviving entity with social behavior.
In a honeybee hive, queens typically mate with many male partners (10+). While all hive individuals are related, the majority female workers are each the product of diploid sex determination with multiple possible fathers.