It seems like they’re working constantly to gather food to store in the hive/colony, but when do the individual workers stop for a bite to eat? Do they eat and then go to work? Do they pilfer a little of the food they’ve collected before bringing it back home? Do all the workers line up at the end of the day and go to the hive cafeteria?
I think your anthropomorphizing a tad here. Colony insects don’t have a lunch break, so to speak. They eat as they go (constantly) and store the extra to bring back to the colony.
In other words, the time spent in the colony is the only time the workers don’t eat.
Not all workers are food-gatherers. There are plenty - guards, nursery workers, drones, etc - that never leave the nest. I know that at least in some species, workers will go around delivering food to those who need it. Usually in the form of some semi-digested nutrient soup, I believe.
Yes, but but we have to think of the entire colony as one organism. It breeds as one, and the the workers are its arms, legs, … Hell, almost the entire body of the organism. And as such: the food gatherers are the mouth.
Colony insects are fascinating in that way.
Cannelloni!
No, wait, that’s penguins.
Well, yes, OK. You can think of it in that way if you want, it’s perfectly valid. I don’t see what that has to do with the original question, though. The individual organisms still need to eat, and the question was how that happens. To follow your analogy, it’s like someone asking how nutrients are delivered to our cells, and responding with, “It’s all the same organism, hurrah” instead of explaining about the digestive and circulatory systems.
I thought I covered that with my first post. They eat as they go, and carry the extra back to the colony. A honey bee collects nectar and pollen, sure, but it eats its share of nectar before it gets back to the hive.
The above is only sorta true, though. It’s true for ants, definitely true for ants, but not so much for bees. My bad.
But that’s why I mentioned that you have to think of an insect colony as one organism. Honeybees make honey. That’s their food source. Humans don’t actually eat wheat grass, but we make bread out of it. And we eat bread. Honey is the bee’s bread.
Crap, the above post didn’t exactly nail the answer either. I’ll try one more time.
We have to think of a colony of insects as one organism, but there are different modes that type of life operates. Some are herbivores, some are predators, some “farm” some just take. Regardless, every part of the organism gets fuel. Honey bees take materials back to the hive and eat that; most ants (but by no means all) eat as they go and take the extra back.
There’s really no simple answer to the question because there’s a great deal of variation in colony species. The only common denominator is that colony insects function as a whole. The O.P. is asking how the fingers get fed. That’s not a criticism, you just have to treat the colony as a whole.
Yeah, that’s why with my answer I was trying to address the details of how food gets to all the different bits. I think at this point, it’s been covered reasonably well, unless the OP wants to come back and clarify or expand.
Well…why not expand? So the gatherers eat a little as they go about their duties. What about those back at home base? Do they go where the food is stored, or is it doled out somehow?
That was precisely the question I attempted to address in my first response:
That is the extent of my knowledge, so I will bow out and let those with more expertise take it from here.