This article presents a comprehensive analysis of immune pathways and defense mechanisms in honey bees (*Apis mellifera*). The authors focus on individual defenses, using a genome-wide analysis to identify plausible orthologues for four signaling pathways involved in immunity: Toll, Imd, JAK/STAT, and JNK. They find that honey bees have about one-third fewer genes in 17 gene families implicated in insect immunity compared to *Drosophila* and *Anopheles*. The reduced gene diversity in honey bees is observed across all stages of immunity, from recognition and signaling to immune effectors. The authors propose several hypotheses to explain these findings, including the idea that bees are targeted by a limited set of coevolved pathogens and that social defenses reduce the reliance on individual immune responses. The study highlights the importance of sociality in shaping immune systems and provides insights into the genetic basis of disease resistance in honey bees.This article presents a comprehensive analysis of immune pathways and defense mechanisms in honey bees (*Apis mellifera*). The authors focus on individual defenses, using a genome-wide analysis to identify plausible orthologues for four signaling pathways involved in immunity: Toll, Imd, JAK/STAT, and JNK. They find that honey bees have about one-third fewer genes in 17 gene families implicated in insect immunity compared to *Drosophila* and *Anopheles*. The reduced gene diversity in honey bees is observed across all stages of immunity, from recognition and signaling to immune effectors. The authors propose several hypotheses to explain these findings, including the idea that bees are targeted by a limited set of coevolved pathogens and that social defenses reduce the reliance on individual immune responses. The study highlights the importance of sociality in shaping immune systems and provides insights into the genetic basis of disease resistance in honey bees.