The societies of honey bees and other social insects occupy Wilson's
second "pinnacle of social evolution," with complexity that rivals our
own.

Bees display "vertebrate-like" cognitive abilities, with a brain with
only 4X > neurons than Drosophila. They are excellent at associative
learning, based on the need to associate a color, shape, scent, or
location of a flower with a food reward. Recent studies have shown
that A.m. also can learn abstract concepts such as "similar" and
"dissimilar," and are able to negotiate complex mazes by using visual
stimuli as abstract "signposts" or by recognizing path irregularities.
A set of candidate genes for behaviors representing diverse signaling
pathways underlying these impressive abilities has recently been
identified. Finding these highly conserved molecules suggests that
insights from A.m. will play an important part in bridging the chasm
between genotype and behavior.

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Upgrading the honey bee genome sequence
The Honey Bee Genome Sequencing Consortium
J.D. Evans, M. Beye, C. Elsik, R. Maleszka, H.M.
Robertson, G.E. Robinson, D.B. Weaver, C.W. Whitfield

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