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What if you did the exact opposite, like rogue bees do (2020)

mrdbourke.com

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Re: What if you did the exact opposite, like rogue bees do (2020)

#131

Post by soco »

ChatGTP wrote: post #124
RHSman2 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a cherry tree. Grown from a sapling. A few years ago I noticed the leaves turning in. Aphids. I then discovered that Ants farm those aphids. They place a guard ant to stop predators (lady bugs) and let this black little fellas grow and grow. Then the other ants feed off their sugary goodness. Incredible. Where does that direction come from? Collective consciousness with inherent intelligence?

It is interesting, an ants brain must be the size of a pin head and runs on how much energy ? Yet some how they solve problems like that and can co-ordinate in large numbers. I despise using poisons of any kind against insects and animals for this reason. Even watching butterflies dance together while flying around is quite fascinating. I guess they must have some kind of self-awareness too? I have a bird near my pla…

Which is why I always squint at people claiming only humans have intelligence. Have they ever seen an animal? And I don't mean now the "soul" discussion, just the intelligence for which the goalposts often get swiftly moved "oh they can't solve equations" "most humans can't either" "ok but they can't paint" "elephants do that" "yeah but...".

Re: What if you did the exact opposite, like rogue bees do (2020)

#132

Post by quickthrower2 »

SeanAnderson wrote: post #43

The whole "opt out of expected group-think behavior" reminds me of a paper regarding the tunneling and movement behavior of ants: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/science/ants-worker-idlen... The gist of it is that 30% of studied ants do 70% of the work in digging tunnels. Other ants come in, see that it is too crowded, and don't try to force their way in in an effort to prove they're working hard to the other ants…

The MBAs could learn something from this!

Re: What if you did the exact opposite, like rogue bees do (2020)

#133

Post by ptidhomme »

mmis1000 wrote: post #103

This reminds me the simulated annealing algorithm programs used to find answers for a problem that can't be perfectly resolved by brute-forcing in constant time. By search the easiest way and introduce randomness at same time. You can avoid being trapped into local maximum, just like bees here do.

I'm glad someone mentioned Simulated Annealing, which implements this very phenomenon.

Re: What if you did the exact opposite, like rogue bees do (2020)

#134

Post by lostlogin »

kurthr wrote: post #34
aeturnum wrote: post #17

I think there's a trap people fall into where they want to talk about stochastic processes that are facilitated by group dynamics using individualist language: > Knowing this, it might be worth ignoring the waggle dance of those around you every so often. Some bees being predisposed through biology or chemical messaging to ignore information is fundamentally different from an individual deciding to ignore messaging.…

This is an important point. I also see it when people talk about drones vs workers vs Queen in a hive. All of the other bees really are effectively arms of the Queen. The Queen lives 1-3years before another queen takes over, while the rest of the bees live 7 weeks. She mates once, but her drones are just a bunch of flying sexual organs than can mate with multiple outside queens several seasons each year. She can stin…

> All of the other bees really are effectively arms of the Queen.

Are they?

They make the cells for her to lay eggs in, so that she has a daughter in the old colony when she leaves.

The workers shrink the queen down when they want her to swarm, and they stop her laying so she is ready to fly.

The workers clean the queen and feed her.

They expand the number of cells for brood in spring and shrink it in autumn.

The workers decide when the queen is ready to die, and feed royal jelly to the grub that will supersede the old queen by killing her.

Who controls the hive?

I’m a beekeeper and I don’t know.

Re: What if you did the exact opposite, like rogue bees do (2020)

#135

Post by lostlogin »

vermilingua wrote: post #105
eep_social wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worker bees die when they sting mammals because mammal skin retains the barbed stinger tip. However, workers are not inherently one-shot stingers in all cases.

And mammal skin retains the stinger because the barbs were evolved for that purpose, so that venom glands continue to drive venom into the stung animal.

The bees don’t always die when they sting, they sometimes don’t get it lodged and can attack again.

Top tip, wearing a bee suit will help with this, but it’s so damn hot, so if the stings are relatively few, just taking the hit is preferable. Be more gentle and it’s the best of both worlds - cool and venomless.

Re: What if you did the exact opposite, like rogue bees do (2020)

#137

Post by drekk »

kurthr wrote: post #34
aeturnum wrote: post #17

I think there's a trap people fall into where they want to talk about stochastic processes that are facilitated by group dynamics using individualist language: > Knowing this, it might be worth ignoring the waggle dance of those around you every so often. Some bees being predisposed through biology or chemical messaging to ignore information is fundamentally different from an individual deciding to ignore messaging.…

This is an important point. I also see it when people talk about drones vs workers vs Queen in a hive. All of the other bees really are effectively arms of the Queen. The Queen lives 1-3years before another queen takes over, while the rest of the bees live 7 weeks. She mates once, but her drones are just a bunch of flying sexual organs than can mate with multiple outside queens several seasons each year. She can stin…

You're forgetting the part where the queen is never alone, being prodded along by workers to continue laying eggs at an acceptable pace. When the hive (not the queen!) decides it's time to swarm, they'll force the queen to move more briskly in the hope she loses some weight and the second flight of her life can go more than a few meters. If the queen isn't up to the task the workers will go to some existing brood comb and give the larvae some "royal" jelly to get a replacement. As soon as one spawns the other infantile queens are slaughtered.

The entire reason we get the language of queen/worker/drone is because Europeans saw a complex ordered system and projected their own hierarchy on it. A "queen" bee never issues commands. She's only good for laying more larvae and even if she were to die suddenly the only issue is finding some immature larvae already in the hive to feed "royal" jelly. They don't decide when or where to swarm, and are basically carried by the mass of bees "escorting" them to their new home.

Yes, the queen is the reproductive source of the hive and losing a queen can really mess everything up depending on the timing. To say that all the other bees are simply "arms of the queen" is incredibly reductive though. She can be replaced at any time, and often is as she ages. The "productivity" curve rapidly decreases after the first or second year of life. It's not uncommon for commercial beekeepers to replace a queen every 2 years, and the worker bees aren't much more forgiving when it comes to her performance.

Small aside, it's only in summer that workers live ~7 weeks. They live 150-200 days in the winter. The labor they provide is incredibly metabolically taxing, in comparison with eating and giving birth all day every day.

Re: What if you did the exact opposite, like rogue bees do (2020)

#138

Post by RHSman2 »

soco wrote: post #131
ChatGTP wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is interesting, an ants brain must be the size of a pin head and runs on how much energy ? Yet some how they solve problems like that and can co-ordinate in large numbers. I despise using poisons of any kind against insects and animals for this reason. Even watching butterflies dance together while flying around is quite fascinating. I guess they must have some kind of self-awareness too? I have a bird near my pla…

Which is why I always squint at people claiming only humans have intelligence. Have they ever seen an animal? And I don't mean now the "soul" discussion, just the intelligence for which the goalposts often get swiftly moved "oh they can't solve equations" "most humans can't either" "ok but they can't paint" "elephants do that" "yeah but...".

We talk about strength and relative strength. Ants! Their relative intelligence is off the scale! I think our egos are much bigger than our intelligence

Re: What if you did the exact opposite, like rogue bees do (2020)

#139

Post by RHSman2 »

soco wrote: post #130
RHSman2 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about our nature? I don’t believe there isn’t meaning, only what we as humans apply. If an ant applies meaning, it still counts. Just might be less than we can perceive.

There are indeed only two categories: either we say there's no meaning at all (and at the scale of the universe it definitely looks so) then there's no difference between a human and an ant, we're all nothings. Or, we say there is a meaning in humans, then we must give meaning also to smaller critters like you suggested, just don't look at the scale of the universe :) Or of course, we accept meaning as a very local t…

I believe that meaning is derived by the living organism. I imagine ants to have a form of OCD where they feel the fear if they don’t do what they are compelled to do.

Humans think they have free will. I don’t think so, we all do what we are compelled to do (and that could just be follow the herd)

Re: What if you did the exact opposite, like rogue bees do (2020)

#140

Post by RHSman2 »

soco wrote: post #131
ChatGTP wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is interesting, an ants brain must be the size of a pin head and runs on how much energy ? Yet some how they solve problems like that and can co-ordinate in large numbers. I despise using poisons of any kind against insects and animals for this reason. Even watching butterflies dance together while flying around is quite fascinating. I guess they must have some kind of self-awareness too? I have a bird near my pla…

Which is why I always squint at people claiming only humans have intelligence. Have they ever seen an animal? And I don't mean now the "soul" discussion, just the intelligence for which the goalposts often get swiftly moved "oh they can't solve equations" "most humans can't either" "ok but they can't paint" "elephants do that" "yeah but...".

A final anecdote: I have 2 boys with ADHD (inattentive and impulsive) and I also have low grade impulsive ADHD. I also have an English Pointer who is a hunting dog (but doesn’t) When you have these fairly ‘disobedient’ or strongly instinct driven creatures, it teaches you a lot about what it takes to assimilate a sentient being into another’s way of life.

I am still working on it across all beings! However, I have come to the conclusion that a certain amount of toeing the line is possible but left to their own devices, they probably would!

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