TheBiologySpace.BioBlog

Maybe in bee, the bees are actually smack talking the catepillars.
Or, if you want a more scientific guess, maybe the bee’s noise reminds the caterpillars of the sound that ants make when they travel across ground, or the sound of birds flapping their wings. If the two sounds sound the same, the catepillar, even if it can KINDA make out which is which, will probably become paranoid {though, can they become paranoid?} and anxious; it’s brain is probably telling itself to move into the shadows, while at the same time another part of it’s brain is trying to focus on eating. The duel usage of the brain {being the catepillars no doubt have a tiny teeny one} probably slows down the caterpillar’s process.

Since bees protect the plants they pollinate, I think it will be a good idea to plant more flowers that are pollinated by bees close to fruit and vegetable crops. The bees will hang around to protect the flowers which would also help protect the crops from being destroyed by the caterpillars.

I thought it was interesting how this mutualistic realtionship played out where the plant is able to provide pollination and the bee may serve as a protector of the plant. This relationship is more likely to increase fitness due to the bees ability to gather nectar and also allows the plants to remain reproductively fit.

The bees and its flowering plants share a mutualism relationship in which both of the species benefit. The bees live in close contact with the flowering plant and are intriguing how it just about shields its mate from predators, such as the caterpillar.

I never thought of bees as plant defenders. I always believed the stinger was just for defending the bee against threats from humans or insects. However, it seems completely logical to me that the caterpillars on plants are less likely to eat a meal when the bees are present. I would not like to eat a meal with a bee buzzing around my head either.

This mutualistic affiliation almost certainly evolved due to the fact that the caterpillar was eating all of their foliage that the bees pollinate. Since bees can only pollinate certain flowers, bees had to obliterate the caterpillars before the soybean plants become wiped out. In doing so, these both completely benefited the soybean plant and the bees, while it lessened the caterpillars. I am convinced that the caterpillars will come across a way around this loophole and create a stronger resistance to bring fear upon the bees. This undeniably portrays the evolutionary fitness of the bees by adapting to the milieu, so they survive and flourish with their acquired traits.

After reading about colony collapse disorder, I believe this phenomenon would affect this mutualistic relationship. In CCD, beekeepers are losing large amounts of bees in their hives. If there are fewer bees to pollinate the flowers, then there are also fewer bees to defend the plants against the caterpillars. Therefore, more plants would be consumed.

I find this way of viewing bees interesting. I personally cannot stand bees and freak out whenever one is remotely close to me. It is nice to know that the bees serve more than one function in the environment and assist the plants even further than just pollination. This is a mutualistic relationship that has evolved through the years as part of coevolution.

The caterpillar would considerably increase, if it had inimitable heritable distinctiveness that enables them to devour the soybean plant. For instance, the caterpillar which bolster the most triumphant predators by having characteristics such as cryptic coloration which blend in with the most to the color and texture of the soybean plant. Since the caterpillars appear to intermingle in with the plant, it would be tricky for the bees to detect and destroy their prey.

I agree with Alyssa that I never have the idea of bees being plant defenders. But I’m wondering whether its the bee’s intention to guard the plant or its just the catepillars don’t want to be around the plant while the bee/s are on there.

I never thought that bees could actually do anything other than make honey, do those bee dances from those old cartoons, pollinate, and come after you like they have a personal vendetta against you. I kind of feel bad for hating the little guys, but not as much after one chased me around for a while recently. I hate bees.

I remember watching a documentary on PBS about the mysterious disappearance of bees a couple of years ago. It was amazing how these organisms were disappearing without a trace. Researchers couldn’t even find bodies. The problem was labeled colony collapse disorder, which is a very vague name because scientists didn’t know why this was happening.
At the time of this documentary, scientists were worried about the world food supply because bees pollinate a lot of plants we eat. Now, the problem will be even worse if the lack of bees causes a decrease in plants due to an increase in hungry caterpillars as Alyssa proposed.
The documentary can be found here if you are curious: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/silence-of-the-bees/introduction/38/

I think that is just amazing how creatures interact with each other. In that catepillars and scarred of bees and that will stop eating because of it. That give the bees and other insects like them more respect. I never thought to treat them wrong since my bad encounter with ‘em stinging creatures, but wow!

I think has us humans controlling a large part of what happens in the naturalistic world that we should respect and protect the bees. I mean without them we wouldn’t have honey, no pollinating plants could reproduce and they would all die off. Plants and trees are the main sources of our oxygen creation.
Can’t live without them.

I agree with everyone else that caterpillars may have been conditioned to stay away from the bees. The caterpillars might associate the sound of buzzing bees to something more threatening like the sound of beating wings of a bird or a wasp. As a result the caterpillars are less likely to continue consuming their meal as they would be preoccupied thinking about survival.

I think that this is yet again great proof of evolution and its affects. Like Tiffany said the plants must have been destroyed by the caterpillars therefore eliminating the bees’ food source. In response, the bees began attacking the caterpillars. In turn the caterpillars developed camoflauge to blend in. Now the three have reached an equilibrium state that allow them to live in harmony without too much fluctuation in population. Furthermore, this shows how complex and delicate our ecosystems are.

Colony collapse disorder causes an unusually low amount of adult bees and is proposed to be the result of pesticides, which are becoming a real problem in agriculture today. If this increases, we could have a real shortage of food on our hands with vegetable or fruit plants left unpollinated.

It is extremely surprising to me that these bees can defend the plants they pollinate from those pesty caterpillars. So much money goes into pesticides that attempt to defend these plants. But all along, it’s as simple as a bee present to scare the caterpillars away.

So if the bees protect the flowers they pollinate, would putting these flowers by other plants or crops like vegetables, keep those safe as well? Maybe by mixing the flowers and crops you could use a natural pesticide to combat the caterpillars.

This reminded me of this little box that my dad put outside with a speaker that makes an annoying buzzing sound to keep the mice away from our garage. The crazy thing is that it works. It seems that the bees are doing the same thing as this box, which makes me think that the caterpillar’s reaction is not all that uncommon.

Bees don’t bother me and my mom has a garden, so thank you bees.

I’d just like to start off by saying that if any bee was chillin’ on a leaf, none of us would be within a 10 meter radius of it. Now concerning dinky little caterpillars whom have a prolific future to look forward to (becoming a butterfly), I’m almost certain they will stay away from savage bees. But I must say this study is quite helpful to my family. My mother is constantly spending time in her backyard garden and always has caterpillars infiltrating with their mouths ready. Although bees may be predators to the human race, their mutualistic relationship with leaves keeps them embraced by the plant kingdom.

I agree with Alyssa’s explanation of how colony collapse disorder (CCD) affects the mutualistic relationships. But when I read about CCD, it said that there was simply no or a low number of adult honey bees present but with a live queen and no dead honey bees in the hive. Where could the adult bees be? Maybe the bees didn’t return to the hive because they were out protecting the flowers that they pollinated?

For insects that are extremely important to our world around us, we as humans don’t seem to care much about them. We should let the bees do what they are meant to do and not get in their way by killing them. I will from now on treat these defenders with more respect!

Catepillars chopping no plants reduced because of bees? I kinda doubt this since i am sure the catepillers just fear bees around. I never thought of bees as defenders of plants but just merely having a relationship to gather pollens for the colony.

I guess bees will do everything in their power to protect their live style. Even if it means stoping catepillars. But it seems like they don’t stop humans if they attack plants. I still believe this is a mere coincidence that bees are there to stop catepillars from eating plants. But still, it is quite amazing what bees are capable of.

The way that the bees “defend” their plants kind of mirrors the way any animal protects their land: by marking it. Each animal in the while utilizes methods to keep its terriorty clear of others, whether its scent, by uriniating in various areas around a territory, competition, by the alpha males of two different species fighting for land, or any other type method. When bees take their necter from the plants, it may leave traces of “bee scent” which keeps catepillars away.

Its funny that the University of Wurzburg only mentioned the presence of bees. For other insects, such as flies, and hornets, do from time to time pollinate various plants. Yet, wasps are extremely more violent than bees are when around other organisms. Does that mean that catepillars are scared of all flying insects? I don’t know but it seems funny that bees are just “assumed” to be the keepers of the flower and not some other insect.

This relationship between bees and catepillars looks alot healtier than the aphid and ladybug relationship. For although the bees prevent the catepillar’s presence, the ladybugs want aphids to eat the plants so that they would get a healthy supply of food. The dog-eat-dog relationship of a plant who attracts aphids to eat the plant, aphids who attract ladybugs to eat the aphids, and ladybugs who keep the plant alive. Its cool to see a different type of mutialism.

This article got me thinking about how i could use this type of relationship to my advantage, because i have a long lasting vedetta with caterpillers, for they destroyed my beloved tomato plant in 2nd grade. I figure that i could begin a small behive in my back yard and try to control the population to the best of my ability so that the bees will destroy or atleast pester the glutenous caterpillers in the submition leaving nector for them and tomatoes for me.

If you think about it, there are almost an infinite number of organisms crawling, swimming, and flying on the ground, in the atmosphere, and in the water. How many mutualistic and parasitic relationship must exist between the tiniest bacteria to the giant elephant? How many species are truly alone on earth, if any?

I had no idea that bees could defend plants. As I was reading I was confused because I couldn’t figure out how the bees could defend the plants. Its good that this relationship has occured because the bees need the plants to pollinate and the plants need to be pollinated so the mutualistic relationship can help these species live longer.

Parker makes a good point. Its almost like plants have their own pesticides and all we are doing are polluting water sources and using unnecessary chemicals. We are just creating a problem and nature had everything figured out!

The bees probably were not getting enough food so they protected their food source while also not causing much harm to the caterpillers. The bees also are more evolutionary fit because they have another job and therefore more bees are needed so more should be produced.

Well this is the first blog that i have actually looked into the study itself to see exactly what was conducted. I noticed that the caterpillars were distracted by the bees flight path. But do the caterpillars refrain from chomping on the leaves because of the bees themselves or the noise they make? If the caterpillars were simply annoyed by the sound, then this study can truly provide an enormous amount of help to all of those gardeners out there. Instead of having pet bees guard their plants, they can simply buy some sort of buzzing device and place it next to whatever plant they want to protect. I think i speak on behalf of everyone when i say I would also be very irritated while eating if there was an annoying buzzing sound around me.

I don’t think that it is the bee’s intentions to defend the plants. When I go into the kitchen to make myself a snack, I am so focused to getting to that snack that I don’t care if my mom is doing the dishes or talking to my dad. I will get that snack. I think that this is how it is with the bees. They are getting pollen, it is a boring task but to them maybe not so much. Anyways that is there job or role in life. All I am saying is that I don’t think that bees go to specific plants and bug the insects away, I just think it is a coincidence that the catepillars are there and that they are annoyed so they don’t eat there. It is helpful for not buying so much pesticides, but other than that I think pointless testing.

I think I watched the documentary that Katie talked about. I also found on a website that the world would starve or die if there were no more bees. (I don’t know how reliable that this is…) But it is a shocker to me that things that have wings, buzz, and make honey can make such an impact in our lives. As Katie says they pollinate most of the food we eat, and I love food and if we had to go on rations, I just don’t know what would happen. I really don’t like bees because I got my first sting in the armpit, but I think I will change my mind now. They are important.

I believe this does increase the bees’ evolutionary fitness because the more plants protected, the more the bees can pollinate. I agree that caterpillars will most likely evolve so as not to fear the bees; that might cause the bees to evolve to counter that- a cycle that may continue for who knows how long.

Perhaps, some people have inborn phobias of insects because our ancestors, the cavemen, learned through trial and error that some insects possess poison and painful stings which could kill them, thus through natural selection we have an inborn fear of insects. With this in mind, I can picture the bees being the bodyguards of the plant kingdom more easily, as it is their role in their niche to protect and serve the plants.

nadeem i like your name and your comparison of humans to catepillars. I think many haven’t directly thought of a human to bee relationship and how it might resemble a catepillar to bee relationship. In which case i would have to agree with everyone in the idea that its a conditioned thing.

This is an interesting symbiotic relationship. Bees and plants can’t exist without one another, but the relationship is taken one step further since bees indirectly protect the plant life they so heavily rely on by scaring off caterpillars. The research could definitely be applied to real world scenarios by planting crops near bees so as to limit the detrimental impact caterpillars can have on plants. I wonder if it’s the actual buzzing sound that causes the caterpillars to stop eating? If so, maybe a recording of bees buzzing could do the job in, let’s say, a garden since most people would prefer not to have a swarm of bees residing in their backyard.

This article brought to light an interesting idea. Bees are not generally harmful to caterpillars and as far as I know caterpillars wouldn’t do anything to provoke a bee into attacking it unless it was suicidal. So I agree that the buzzing of the bees probably reminds the caterpillar of something more menacing than bees or just plain annoys them into submission.

This article suprised me, i never thought bees could be so irratating and target such things as caterpillars, nor did i think it would mess with caterpillars to this extent. Like stated by many others i believe this probably just annoys the caterpillars too this point, like a student tapping his/her pen on the table.

It seems to me that bees are a very protective species. They don’t like animals sniffing around their hives, and they don’t like caterpillars chomping down on the plants they pollenate. It makes sense that the bee would be protective of the plant though because if the caterpillar eats the plant, the plant produces fewer flowers, then the bees either have to go out farther to find flowers, or deal with what they have. But no matter what they will end up with less pollen, which means less honey, which means not enough food. So to keep all of that from happening, the bees keep the caterpillars away as much as possible, and everybody lives happily ever after. Except the caterpillars.

I like bees. They try to mind their own business, they make delicious honey, they die to keep what they need safe, and they make the world beautiful with blooming flowers. This article and study really proves that without bees, plants would be in a big pile of doo doo. No one would be there to save them when the big green nasties come to have breakfastlunchdinner all day long. Whether the bees do it because they care for the plants safety, or don’t want to lose their food doesn’t really matter. Its fascinating to me how so many plants, insects, and animals are all connected to eachother.

It is incredible how all sorts of organisms share relationships with each other, some mutualisitc some parasitc, that play such a huge role in the grand scheme of things. Not only do organsims experience physical mutation over hundreds and thousands of years, but they also develop habitual mutations to better suit them for survival.

Oh Anu you are a comical one. What I have just realized after reading the colony collapse disorder link article thingamajig is that bees actually have been proven to have assisted in the economic gain of crop producers. What else can these astonishing bees do? Maybe if you planted soybean plants all around your house, bees can act as free home security protecting you from pesty robbers and unwanted neighboring children playing on your lawn. Brilliant! So bees assist in the economic gain of crop producers, protect the plant kingdom from malicious caterpillars, and help immensely with the reproduction of plants. Now what would a phenomenon such as colony collapse disorder do to this mutualistic relationship you ask? It would bring this relationship to a crushing end. For example Titanic: The plants are Rose, and the bees are Leonardo DiCaprio. Although the plants survive to tell the tale of this horrific catastrophe, they are left without their beloved Jack Dawson and may eventually die off due to severe depression. Of course I am speaking figuratively. Plants cannot die of depression; ’tis impossible. Bees basically have an enormous responsibility to fulfill the needs of plants all while at the same time pestering humans and making honey. For this, I praise the bee species and thank them for their service. And I thank you Mrs. Ferguson for allowing me to fully express my opinions about the intriguing Apis mellifera.

Makes sense to me. Bees are know for fiercely defending their homes, why wouldn’t they do the same for their food sorce. Lions protect their turf (protecting their food in the long run.) and humans have been blocking off, and defending their farms and herds for thosands of years. It is no suprise that animals “lower” on the intellegence scale would do the same thiing.

I have never really been sacred of bees. I have always imagined if I was in their place, a inch tall, with only a stick to defend myself (oh by the way, if I use the stick I will most likely die.) and a 5′8 human came walking by I would only attack if it was competly nessasary. So in my mind if I get stung by a bee, it is my own fault.

The best idea is to just stay away from there homes, and their flower food.

As Rebecca mentioned I believe that a shortage of plants the bees could have pollinated was the reason the bees started to protect the plants they pollinate. This act increases the evolutionary fitness of the bees because it allows them get to their food source and consequently allows them to increase the number of bees in the colony by having more offspring. A phenomenon such as CCD (colony collapse disorder) would greatly affect the thin balance that these bees have created. CCD would most likely create a domino effect which could, not only, influence the plants’ life but also affect humans. CCD would cause turmoil to plants and distress to gardeners.

My knowledge of bees has proved them to be very smart. IF they are able to protect their shelter and food, i would not put it past them to do it. Do they annoy the catepillars because they harm the bees or just the plants. And how do they do it, I hvae heard that bees die after they sting. Is it nessacary to sacrifice their lives for a soybean.

This behavior also occurs in hummingbirds. Many people who get a lot of wasps in the summer by their pools will put out a hummingbird feeder to attract the birds. Hummingbirds are naturally very protective of their territory and are known to chase away wasps and other insects that may threaten that territory.

This relationship is very interesting. It kind of makes one question how perceptive bees may be about their environment. Maybe the caterpillar population started to increase over a period of time and started destroying plants. So the bee would adapt to this by protecting the plant it pollinates so that its hive would survive.

Yeah, If I were a bee I would protect my food source. And I already think that people are trying to get the word out the bees aren’t that bad… I mean come on, wasn’t there a Bee movie that came out in theaters a few months ago? It shows how it helps out the environment.. its not a pest. But bees protecting plants are just incredible.

I did not realize that the mutualistic relationship between a bee and a flowering plant could be described as so complex. Before, it seemed like the only symbiotic aspect in their relationship had to do solely with pollination. However, the role of bees as defenders of the same plants does make sense after more thought.

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) can be described as the unusually high magnitude of beehive losses recently suffered. The higher the magnitude of loss, the greater the effect on the mutualistic relationship between bees and flowering plants, essentially leading to a decline in the plant population. CCD also takes a toll on the agricultural industry due to the fact that bee pollination is responsible for billions of dollars in added crop value.

If what Nadeem said is true then caterpillars may ADD. How could a flight pattern distract them from eating. Also I wasn’t aware that caterpillars had ears.

This seems to be example of “don’t touch my food!!!.” The bees are particular to the kinds of plants they pollinate and feed on, so in order to protect their peaceful relations with plants like soybean, they annoyed the caterpillars. This relationship between the bees and the plant is a perfect example of a mutualistic relationship, although the caterpillar seems to lose out on the benefits.

This relationship seemed to have evolved when the bees found out that the caterpillars were destroying most of their plants. The bees were acting out of their own selfish reasons but that required saving the plants they pollinated, so it became a very mutualistic relationship. This relationship does increase the evolutionary fitness of the bees, since there probably have been (or will be in the future) instances where the caterpillars counteract, causing harm to the bees or the plants. We can clearly see who won (or will win) this fight through the research conducted.

After reading this article, I was sceptical of the idea that “when bees buzz about, they’re not out to annoy you, they’re really out to annoy the caterpillars”. I found it hard to believe that the caterpillars would associate the sound of bees to the flapping of a bird’s wing (not only because they sound nothing alike, but because caterpillars DONT have ears). However, after doing a little research, I learned that caterpillars have fine hairs on the exterior of their bodies which help them to detect differences in the movement of air. “These sensory hairs are not fine-tuned,” said Jurgen Tautz of Biozentrum University, in Bavaria, Germany. Therefore, caterpillars can’t distinguish between birds and bees. This is a very important connection to make, especially for when we put this research into play. Instead of planting flowers (to attract bees) near crops, we could just imitate the sound of bees and not even have to include actual bees in this caterpillar control method… Because let’s face it, even if bees were the cure for cancer, they’d still be annoying.

Honestly, I don’t think that the bees intentionally protect the plants. I believe that they are simply ‘in the right place, at the right time’. But, if there was reason for the bees to protect the plants that they pollinate, then I assume it would be due to something extreme, like a lack of food, which would cause the naturally passive insects to become more territorial.

I liked Parker’s idea about placing the bees in a different environment and observing how they protected the crops there. The only problem is that the bees might not find any interest in the area they are placed or the bee population could possible become an invasive species, that might be some what far fetched, but there are always risks.

I agree with Krishan, the bees and plants make a great mutualistic relationship. The relationship probably evolved from the bees just pollinating to them actually protecting the plants from caterpillars because the bees wanted the nector from the flowers and if the caterpillars destroyed the plant then they would not have the plant anymore so they began protecting them. This would most likely increase the fitness of the bees because there would be more plants so therefore there would more bees.

Personally, I don’t know much about bees, but I suspect the main reason they protect the flowers is to protect a major ingredient to making honey.

This article presents a great alternative to using harmful pestacides. By applying this reseach, we could ensure a safer environment for all animals including humans.

Colony collapse disorder could lead to a decrease in the number of bees. If the bee population declines so would the pollination process. If the bees are not there to pollinate the plants, caterpillars would not feel threatend and would continue to destroy plants.

Parker mentioned the money spent on pesticide, so with the bees acting as the protectors there is no need for pesticide. At the same time bees scare most people so the people who dont know about this story will try to get rid of the bees…but luckily for us, now we know!

I agree with Krishan about how this mutualistic relationship could have developed. By protecting the plant, the bees also serve the dual purpose of pollenating it. Hopefully, with more plants that develop this relationship, less pesticides could be used to rid plants of leaf-eating insects.

I wonder whether or not it is an instinct of a caterpillar to know if a bee is around and to avoid it at all costs, thereby stopping it from eating the plant. It would be interesting to test effects of buzzing noises (like Nadeem said) on caterpillars, or just different bees themselves and to see how the caterpillars react. It would prove beneficial not only to farmers, but to the plants as well.

If you think about it logically, though, the more a bee helps to protect a plant from caterpillars, the more food the bee will collect in the long run. It is most definitely beneficial for all but the caterpillar, but without the caterpillars to eat the plants, would we be overrun with flowering plants in our cities? Right now it seems they have reached an equilibrium, but as more humans are born, more plant matter must be consumed (through directly eating plants or through eating animals who ate the plants), thereby increasing the need for more plants. Where would these new plants grow, and an even more pressing question: What is the carrying capacity of the world for humans, and would there ever be enough food to feed all of us if we reach that point? Plants are important for survival, but too many might cause a problem in the future.

I don’t believe that these testings are pointless because the relationship between the caterpillars and bees can be more than meets the eye. It is still a developing phenomenon and could lead to new observations. Sometimes extraordinary discoveries can be found even if those results weren’t intentional.

I would like to know if the bee’s buzzing has adverse effects on more than just caterpillars. Does it affect birds and other larger organisms? I definitely know that sound effects humans!

you know, this kind of information is one of those things where you never think about but once you hear it, it seems like a very logical thing and you can’t believe it never crossed your mind before.. i just went through that experience just now, and it was a bit weird

no, i really think they are out to annoy me… as for annoying the caterpillars, i believe this mutualistic relationship is great for both species.

I found this article very interesting in that the bees provide a protection service for the flowers. Also I know that wasps can eat caterpillars and since a mere caterpillar cannot tell the different between the flapping noise of the wings from killer wasp and a harmless bee, they have automatically developed a danger sensor that tells them to drop off the plant or freeze in place. This is a good thing to know especially since my grandparents are avid vegetable growers as well as wasp/bee killers and always wonder why their vegetables are always eaten. I’ll be sure to tell them this!

This article is very interesting are represents an ideal mutualistic relationship. The bee protects the flower, while pollinating the other specimens of the flowers. The bee is then securing his assets by protecting the specimens. The relationship could have evolved from the fact that bees were competing with the caterpillars and through time found that certain (annoying) behaviors ward off the caterpillars. This relationship increases the evolutionary fitness of bees because it proves the intelligence of the bees. (how many insects defense actually annoy their competitor- its the perfect way- they don’t put themselves into harms way.)

After reading the article, it makes sense that the caterpillar isn’t too happy about bees being around since they sound and look like wasps. So by mimicking the wasp, the bee not only protects itself from predators but it protects it’s food source. Pretty nice how that all works out. I think it’s pretty cool how mother nature made sure everyone was taken care of.

I wonder if just a recording of a bee/wasp wings would also have the same effect on the caterpillars? Perhaps it’s just because the sensitive hairs on the caterpillars are able detect them by feeling the vibrations from their wings fluttering whereas in a recording only the sound would be heard so caterpillars hairs can’t sense any danger. I could see where this experiment could definitely come in handy for farmers who have pest problems with caterpillars which can be solved by growing a flower garden right next to the crops in hopes that it would attract bees.

To answer the last question, this phenomenon suchas colony collapse disorder affect this relationship by severely decreasing the specimens in paramount proportions. About a year ago I was watching 60 min conserning that exact disorder. The study mainly concentrated in california and the farmers would pay thousands of dollars each year to get a colony of bees for a couple of acres. But when the colony mysteriously collapsed the production of the fruits or vegetables went down about 60 percent. If this trend continues then our domestic farm supply would become depleted to the point where we would have to become dependent on other countries.

The fact that such a unseen mutualistic can exist is quite amazing. Nature tends to be able to work things out on its own and for the better. Maybe humans could learn to cooperate in such was to where we don’t have to kill each other for the things we need. Because sooner of later there won’t be anything left to fight over at the rate were going.

I still think bees are still there to annoy JUST ME. Anyways, I think the bees and caterpillars are competitors for the same plant. Both the bee and the caterpillar feed off the same plant, albeit different ways. But since they do, they can not occupy the same niche. One species would have to leave, and since the bees have a better physical advantage over the caterpillar, the bee naturally would dominate. Still, I think bees are out to get me, especially when I fell in that bush in fourth grade…

If I was a catepillar, I would feel the same way. The bees have an innate ability to pollinate flowers, so when they see something that threatens their duties to do their jobs, they will try to defend that threat.

The reason for why bees might protect a soybean plant might be odd for some, but the answer is simple; they need to survive.
If catepillars are destroying the bees’ ability to pollinated, which will eventually cause the bees to attack against the catepillar threat. Like Glen-Eric said, I think that catepillars have developed some type of survial advantages such a camouflage or poisonous skin, etc. The bees will probably not evolve as well as the catepillars to attack them due to the camouflage.