Answer:
In paragraph 1, the author first introduces the idea that many readers and scientists have long believed—that an individual bee is unintelligent. This helps set up her later argument that bees “aren’t quite the dimwitted robots we’ve imagined for so long.” Hurt opens her article by addressing a common viewpoint: “But even though they are pretty impressive as a group, individual bees don’t have much going on in the mental department—or so science has always thought.” Then in paragraph 3, she states “Individually, they have mental skills that may rival or outdo those of many mammals.” This shows she is attempting to prove bees are smarter than we think.
Explanation:
