Comment by i_cannot_hack | Hacker News Reader

Comment by i_cannot_hack | Hacker News Reader

To me, it seem ridiculous to call this "the first clear example of tool use in honeybees". I actually think there must be some big misunderstanding somewhere.

The argument is that by taking animal dung and coating the entrance they are "taking something and manipulating it to shape their environment", which they think qualifies as tool use.

But we've already known for ages that bees gather sap from trees and coat the inside of their hives with it (propolis), to seal gaps and prevent bacterial growth. I cannot think of any reasonable definition of tool use that would include dung coating but exclude sap coating.

Ctrl+f of "sap" and "propolis" in the original paper gave 0 results.

Edit: Upon further reading, they seem to define a tool as a "a non-plant solid", which seems specifically tailored to make dung the first tool. The fact that they fail to mention propolis even once in the paper to highlight what they think is the important difference does not impart confidence.

The paper says:

>It is also the first clear-cut example of honey bees using a tool in nature (nests and the materials used to construct them are not generally considered tools [82, 83], although some authors disagree [81, 89, 91]).

... so I assume the parenthetical is intended to cover the behavior you describe, ie building a nest would not be complete without sealing it so the sap usage doesn't count.

But the dung they describe is simply an additional coating of the nest.

Building the nest requires sealing it. They don't coat it with dung unless they smell wasps nearby.

I think there's a lot of counterargument to this, but I'll stick to the best one: propolis is used as more than just a a sealant for the hive.

"However, if a small lizard or mouse, for example, finds its way into the hive and dies there, bees may be unable to carry it out through the hive entrance. In that case, they would attempt instead to seal the carcass in propolis, essentially mummifying it and making it odorless and harmless."

Example picture: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/A-mouse-skull-that-was-e...

Yes, that does sound to me like it would count as tool-use even by the paper's argument.

Wow, that was really cool. I didn't know about propolis, yet again I'm more amazed by honeybees.

More like "the first clear example of stool use in honeybees".

Ok, we've taken the 'first' bit out of the title above.

It's good to make titles less clickbaity. I don't quite understand the rationale for editing here though, because this is a claim seriously made by the underlying journal article in PLOS One.

Edited to add: it seems an exaggerated claim to me too, but it's not just in the headline

Good question. From our perspective the issue is whether the discussion here gets snagged on something controversial (sensational, etc.) that is less interesting than the main topic. If there's any such snag in the title, the thread will tend to fill up with shallow comments that are reacting just to that. We've learned that when such title objections start appearing, it's best to sand away the snag.

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