London, England -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/27/2012 -- You may have heard of soldier ants - whose primary function is to guard their nest from intruders. Now, scientists have discovered a new soldier, in the usually much less confrontational world of bees. SSC Marketing react to the break-through news, saying “Science has a habit of catching us all off-guard and surprising us”.

A University of Sussex team found that, in colonies of Jatai bees (Tetragonisca angustula), some insects are born soldiers. The study, reported in the journal PNAS, is the first known example of a soldier bee. “A discovery of a variation of a species is always exciting” says SSC Marketing. While the caste system is common in ants and termites, with insects of different shapes and sizes assuming defined roles, the division of labour in bees is usually much more transient. Jatai soldiers are 30% larger than worker bees”

"Workers carry out different tasks at different ages," explained Prof Francis Ratnieks from the University of Sussex, who led the research team. "They start out cleaning the nest, then feeding the larvae... then foraging and [eventually] guarding." But while most bee guards take on their role for about a day, Jatai bee guards stand guard at the wax entrance tube to their nest for about a week. “For an insect that’s a very long time!” commented SSC Marketing.

To find this out, the team observed the bees' nests on a farm in Fazenda Aretuzina, Brazil. They used dots of paint to mark the bees that were hovering and perching close to the entrance, which revealed that these guards assumed that role for extended periods of time. "We then took some of these [guard bees] back to the lab to examine them more closely," explained Prof Ratnieks. From this examination, he and his colleagues realised that the bees were not just behaving different; they were also a different size and shape to the worker bees.

"The Jatai soldiers are 30% larger than worker bees," said Prof Ratnieks. "They also have larger legs that they probably use for grappling."Prof Ratnieks and his colleagues think that the Jatai soldier bees may be the product of an evolutionary arms race against the diminutive species' worst enemy - the robber bee (Lestrimelitta limao).

“Robber bees simply invade other bees' nests” says SSC Marketing “and steal their food reserves rather than foraging”.

"They're much bigger than Jatai bees and a full-blown attack can destroy a [Jatai] colony," explained Prof Ratnieks. Soldier bees appear to help prevent an attack by tackling individual robber "scouts" that set out to find a suitable victim colony to invade. "Take nightclub bouncers, security guards, and rugby players," he said. "It often helps if you are big when tackling a conflicting situation. "The same seems to be true for these bees when deterring nest robbers."

“We at SSC Marketing compare our office to that of a busy hive with everyone working together to a single goal” says SSC Marketing.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/16469386