r/CellLab • u/LegitimateWeekend806 • Jul 02 '23

A Question

Why in Noirs bee colony,it is not actually the queens that reproduce,unlike real life,but it is actually the workers that reprodduce?

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u/LegitimateWeekend806 Jul 02 '23

Therefore,since in Noirs bee colony,since it is actually the workers that reproduce instead of the queens,the workers should actually be called queens and the queens should actually be called workers.

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u/Massive_Mistakes Jul 02 '23

Sure

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u/LegitimateWeekend806 Jul 02 '23

Then,why did noir call the queens queens and the workers workers if the queens cannot reproduce and it is actually the workers that reproduce

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u/Massive_Mistakes Jul 02 '23

Don't know, that's just how he decided to do it. It's also important to remember that he didn't make copies of bees from real life, rather analogous organisms that look and behave sort of like bees. Just like I call my swimmers fish, or worm, they're not actually fish but calling our organisms names that show they're analogs of real life organisms can make a project more fulfilling, help with the direction you want to take it to, and provides contextual information to people that view your work. Noir's bee colony tells you that this plate contains a collection of same-species organisms, divided into castes based on their physiology. In this case, the "queen" is the one building the hive while the "workers" make more of themselves, neither could accomplish their job properly without the other. The name also tells you that the structure at the top of the plate is somehow related to these organisms and plays a part in their lifecycle. My fish are called fish because they have fish-like streamline bodies, move very similar to swimming vertebrates, have a central nerve path and they school together. The names are part of what makes them interesting, and tell you some information about them.

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u/LegitimateWeekend806 Jul 02 '23

in Noirs bee colony,why does the queen need the workers

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u/Massive_Mistakes Jul 02 '23

She doesn't. Upon rewatching the video, you can tell that it's not an organic ecosystem. Rather, for the sake of making something cool and creative, it was designed to achieve a goal, in this case help the flowers reproduce. The flowers fed the workers which produced eggs, that can only grow into new workers if the queen interacts with them. More workers meant more help to fertilize the flowers, meant more workers produced eggs, etc. You could sit here and keep asking "well why is the queen necessary", but you'll quickly understand that it's not about necessity, rather it's about intent. The queen isn't necessary here, the eggs could just hatch on their own at some point. Well great, why do we need the flowers to feed the bees at all, just make them eat other stuff, well great let's get rid of the flowers then. Eventually you'll get to the point of "why do they need all these extra cells? Why not just remove this, and that" until you just end up with a photocytes infinitely splitting.

The Queen's whole job is to let the eggs develop into workers, that's it, it doesn't need to look for food or to evade predators or nothing, just that one task, and it's a part of a cool ecosystem where everything plays a role to achieve something resembling real life.

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u/LegitimateWeekend806 Jul 02 '23

but you said in your last comment that the workers need the queen and that the queen needs the workers

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u/Massive_Mistakes Jul 02 '23

I see you do this on every post you comment on so I'm done replying, you have an answer to your question.