Making big decisions can be hard. Even after considering all options, doing research, and

selecting the best solution, there’s always a fear that you chose wrong.

To lessen that fear, a lot of us seek out advice from friends or even strangers on the

internet in the belief that two - or better yet, many - minds are better than just one.

This way of decision-making is like having a “hive mind,” where a large number of

individuals share their knowledge with each other which produces a collective intelligence.

This often leads to smarter decision-making among groups that is better than what one

individual could accomplish alone.

While often used in science fiction stories, hive minds actually do exist in real life.

There are lots of great examples of this in nature, but one stands out. And it comes from

the animal that inspired the phrase “hive mind” in the first place: bees.

These insects use nest-based communication to give their fellow bees important information,

and collectively make robust decisions. But their methods of communication aren’t what

you may expect.

Communication, or the passing of information from one individual to another, can take many

forms. Many animals, such as primates, whales, birds, and wolves, use sound to talk to one

another. Others, like many insects and even plants, use pheromones or chemicals to send

messages. But bees have developed a communication method that’s a little more peculiar.

They communicate via dance. And their dances can communicate to their peers the direction,

distance, and quality of food sources, the location of possible new hive sites, and sources

of nearby danger. And most surprisingly, they can even use their language to hold democratic

debates. This type of collective behavior is so powerful,

and the connection between the bees is so profound, that scientists are beginning to

understand that a bee colony acts a lot like a single organism - in fact, a lot like a

human brain.

And studying how these remarkable creatures interact could reveal answers about how our

own minds make decisions.

Although only about 10% of bee species are social, honeybees are very social indeed.

Apis mellifera, or the Western honey bee, is the most common of the 12 or so honey bee

species. They create large colonies with a single fertile queen, many non-reproductive

female workers, and a small number of fertile males. Individual colonies can house tens

of thousands of bees. And all of the activity carried out by these bees is organized by

complex communication between individuals.

In the early 1900s, scientists believed that bees might communicate the presence of nearby

food sources through scent - the fragrance of the flower adhering to the bees bodies

and alerting its peers of its nearby presence.

By this theory, the other bees should simply search in ever-expanding circles until they

discover the flowers with the memorized fragrance.

But in 1944, Karl von Frisch, a professor at the University of Munich made a discovery

that turned this assumption on its head - a discovery that would eventually win him the

Nobel Prize.

von Frisch noticed that after observing the returning scout bee, the other worker bees

did not search for flowers with a matching scent everywhere around the hive, but only

in the precise vicinity of where the foraging bee had been, even if that bee had been very

far away. Somehow, the exact location of the food source was being communicated by the

bees.

When von Frisch observed his bees more closely, he discovered that bees are constantly waggling,

running, and turning in circles inside the hive. He then realized that this performance

is a miniature reenactment of the bees’ recent flight outside the hive, indicating

the location of the food source it just visited.

Von Frisch had just discovered communication via dance.

And with it, foragers can share information about the direction and distance to patches

of flowers full of nectar and pollen with other members of the colony.

Their dance is called the waggle dance, and its main feature is the “waggle run,”

where they waggle back and forth while running in a straight line. The duration of the run

tells the other bees how far the resource is, where 1 second is equal to about 1000

meters. And the angle of their run, relative to a straight vertical line, tells the other

bees the angle of outward journey in relation to the sun. For example, if the dancing bee

walks 45 degrees to the right of the vertical line, the food source is 45 degrees to the

right of the position of the sun.

In addition to dancing, the bee also gives out some of the flower’s nectar to its audience

which, combined with the smell of the flower still lingering on the dancing bee help the

recruits locate the food source.

They communicate other things through dance as well. For instance, a “tremble dance,”

where they rock forward and backward and side to side, tells others that foragers have brought

so much nectar back to the hive that more bees are needed to process it into honey.

But not every bee conversation is about food sources, and not every piece of communication

is a one-way street, one bee communicating something to the rest. Bees can use these

same communication methods to discuss options about the future of the hive, and then make

decisions democratically - a type of collective behavior very rarely seen in the animal kingdom.

In late spring and early summer, honeybee colonies become overcrowded in their nesting

cavities. When this happens, it’s time for them to find a new home. One third of the

worker bees stay put and rear a new queen. And two thirds of the workers along with the

original queen begin the search for a new nest-site.

The quest starts with the swarm congregating on a temporary site - a branch, or a bush

outside the old hive. From here, scouts will go out and look for suitable nest sites - a

hollowed out tree, or an abandoned chimney or birdhouse. The bees are looking for a place

that will be protected from weather, predators, and is big enough for the new hive. Size is

perhaps the most important, since any colony occupying a hollow 10 liters or smaller can’t

store enough honey to make it through the winter.

Once a bee finds a location that it likes, it comes back to the group and does the waggle

dance, telling the others where the potential nest site is. Other bees then go check it

out for themselves. If these recruits like it, they’ll come back and do the same dance,

in the same direction. But it’s not always so clear which potential nest-site is the

best choice. And this is where a vigorous debate begins.

Here’s an example of how these debates typically go down, taken from one of the first studies

about bee debates in 1951.

On the first day, 2 nest-scout bees were identified and labeled. One bee reported a nest-site

candidate 1,500 meters to the north, while the other bee reported another site 300 meters

to the southeast. The next day, 11 new dancers were identified. 3 danced in support of the

site 1,500 meters to the north, 2 danced supporting the site 300 meters to the southeast, and

6 others danced about new sites all together. The next day, it rained, and only 2 new dancers

were recorded, one supporting the site to the north, and the other reported a new site,

400 meters to the southwest. The next day, many new sites were reported, but interestingly,

the site to the north was no longer being supported, perhaps because the rain leaked

into the site showing it was not such a good candidate after all. Over the next few days,

many sites were investigated and reported, but interest in most of them eventually faded.

Only one site, the one located 300 meters to the southeast, held the bees interest the

entire time. By the afternoon of the 4th day the bees dancing in support of the southeast

site completely dominated, with 61 bees dancing for it, and only 2 bees still holding out

for other sites. The next morning the decision was unanimous. The swarm then launched into

flight, flew 300 meters to the southeast, and took up residence in the wall of an abandoned

building.

By analyzing bee debates like this, the key features of the bee’s decision making process

becomes clear. The debate first starts with an information gathering phase, where many

alternatives are put on the table for discussion. The debate then progresses with all or almost

all the bees advocating for just one since, indicating that a consensus has been reached.

And during all of this, the process is highly distributed, involving dozens or even hundreds

of individuals - all the hallmarks of a democratic process.

The dances they perform are complex and indicate a lot of cognitive ability. The bees have

to remember the location of the resource or the nest-site, as well as the location of

the sun, and translate that information into the characteristics of the dance. The bees

in the audience then have to read this behavior and translate it into directions they will

then follow.

This, along with the coordinated decision to fly off in the same direction, at the same

time, supports the idea that a bee swarm acts as if it is one organism - a superorganism.

And recently, scientists have realized it’s even more profound than that. The way bees

work together is a lot like how the individual neurons in the human brain work together.

And studying their behavior may give insight into our own minds.

Psychophysical laws explain the relation between real world stimuli and the perception of those

stimuli. The brains of many organisms follow these laws, even quite simple ones.

Weber’s Law states that the change in a stimulus that will be just noticeable is a

constant ratio of the original stimulus.

For example, it might take 4 pounds before you notice your backpack getting heavier,

if your backpack was already loaded with heavy books.

Hick’s law says that the brain is slower to make decisions when the number of alternative

options increases.[9]

And Pieron's Law says that the brain is quicker to make decisions when the options to decide

from are of high quality.

These laws help relate the brain’s perception of reality to actual reality, and are important

when making decisions.. Many organisms adhere to these laws, even simple animals like fish

or insects. Fish, for example, can differentiate between a large school of fish and a small

one, opting to join the larger one, as long as the size difference was large enough for

them to be able to recognize it.

But do these laws only explain an individual’s brain and behavior? Could these laws also

apply to an entire colony of bees as one unit- the so-called ‘superorganism?’

In 2018, scientists started to get their answer. They analysed how quickly the colonies made

decisions between sites of varying qualities and compared the data with several psychophysics

laws to see how well the laws were adhered to.

And it turns out, the bee colony followed the laws closely. It followed Weber’s law,

in that the bees were able to choose the higher quality nest site, if and when the higher

quality, such as a larger size, exceeded the minimum noticeable difference.

They also found that the bee colony was slower to make decisions when the number of alternative

nest-sites increased, and that the colony was quicker to make a decision between two

high-quality nest-sites compared to two low-quality nest-sites.

Honeybee colonies adhere to the same laws as the brain when making collective decisions.

These finds give more support for the idea that bee colonies exist as superorganisms,

operating in the world much like a single, complete organism would.

And just as the bee colony is similar to a whole brain, the individual bee thus acts

like a single neuron. In the human brain, decisions are made when single nerves fire

waves of electrochemical signals. In bee colonies, decisions are made when individual bees communicate

their discoveries through a visual display to other bees.

And if bees follow the same laws as neurons, then observing them can lead to a better understanding

of our own minds - and more quickly too. Observing bee colonies is much easier than trying to

observe the neurons of a brain while a human makes a decision.

By understanding these parallels we can start to learn just how psychophysical laws work.

And with more data, bees could teach us how our entire psychology arises from a few chemical

actions from a few connected cells.

And outside understanding our own minds, computer scientists have created lots of different

algorithms based on bees decision-making methods.

One popular decision-making model is the Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm. It is used for

optimization problems, where users are looking for the best possible solution among many

different options.

In this model, each candidate solution is like a food source and the quality of that

solution is akin to the amount of nectar it holds. It begins with a number of employed

bees at each of the food sources. They then go out to neighboring food sources and compare

the amount of nectar to the previous source. They only remember the information of the

best food source they find.

After a certain number of steps, they share their information with onlooker bees who then

choose what they think is the best food source and sources that aren’t selected are abandoned.

This continues until the best food source, or solution, is identified.

This algorithm has been used to solve many real-world engineering problems across a variety

of fields. For instance, electrical engineers have used it to determine the optimal position

of solar panels for when they are in partial shade,[16] aerospace engineers have used it

to plan the re-entry trajectory of hypersonic vehicles, [17] and computer scientists have

used it to plan the path of robots, [18] proving the true power of the hive mind.

The intersection of biology and computer science is an exciting one, as the different ways

we can solve real world problems with solutions that nature has already made are basically

infinite. Algorithms are at the heart of this, and while they seem complicated, are easier

to wrap your head around than you might realize. If you’ve ever been put off by opaque coding

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As always thanks for watching, and if you are looking for something else to watch right

now, you can watch our previous video, the Insane Biology of Dragonflies, or Real Engineering’s

latest video that debunks a popular and mysterious image of airplanes that has been circulating

the internet for years.