Mason bees, like about 75% of bee species [1], are solitary. This means they eat and live alone, and reproduce in sexual pairs. Other bees are social. Honeybees, for example, live in colonies of 10,000-60,000 [2]. In fact, they are so social that they are called “eusocial”, meaning perfectly social. They are so social, that the colony is considered one organism, and individual bees are only tiny fractions of that organism. Different bees in the colony have very specific functions, similar to the organs in a human body, and resources are shared throughout the colony. The colony reproduces collectively - individual bees cannot make more bees, the entire colony can only create new colonies via new queens. 

 

But we cannot entirely neglect the individuality of a single honey bee. Many physiological systems work at the level of the bee. What we see instead, is nested individuals - cells, making up bees, making up colonies. Instead of asking which is the individual, we can ask how much individuality each has. 

 

The same nested structure exists for humans. A human is a collection of bacterial and human cells, and humans make up social groups with physiological systems at the group level, for example national healthcare. Just like in the bee colony, different humans in the group have different physiological roles, like the farmer that makes food and builder that makes shelter. But human societies have less individuality than bee colonies, because we humans within them have more autonomy to make their own choices. 

 

[1]https://ucanr.edu/sites/PollenNation/Meet_The_Pollinators/Bees_496/

[2]http://completebeehives.com/how-many-honey-bees-in-a-hive/