Key Messages
Learn What Humans Can Take Away From Bees: How A Swarm Of Insects Holds Balanced Discussions About Where To Move
Did you know that a swarm of honeybees is surprisingly capable in the decision-making department? It’s true!
Every year, when it comes time for the honeybee community to select its new home, a few hundred bee scouts engage in a tightly organized debate.
By combining intricate dances with impassioned debates, these bees are able to make the most important decision of their lives- where to live and work as a community.
The information gleaned from this democratic process helps the colony determine what makes for an ideal home for them.
From determining what qualities make for the perfect nest site to mastering sophisticated communication through dance, honeybees are quite remarkable in terms of the decisions they can make together.
Through this informative book summary, you will discover amazing insights on how bees choose their home – and what useful lessons humans can learn from these tiny creatures!
Honeybees Make Life-Or-Death Decisions Through A Complex, Democratic Process
Each year, honeybees must choose their new home.
This is a life or death decision for them; if they make the wrong choice, they could be putting their hive at risk of danger.
They take this responsibility very seriously and use a complex, democratic process to determine where to move the hive.
In 1949, Martin Lindauer was observing a swarm of honeybees when he noticed something unusual.
He realized that some of the bees were performing waggle dances in what seemed to be an organized fashion.
After further experiments, Lindauer concluded that these bees were scouting for a new home site.
The more scientists learned about how honeybees come together to find a new nest, the more impressive it seemed.
Every bee has their own opinion on where the best place to move is – but rather than simply choosing one or two opinions and making all the others suffer, they hold elaborate debates and come to democratic conclusions on where to go as a group.
In fact, this system is so fascinating that even today’s meetings sometimes draw inspiration from it!
So there you have it – with Honeybee Democracy, we now know that each year honeybees make their life-or-death decisions by coming together and working through a complex democratic process!
The Amazing Adaptations Of The Social Superorganism That We Call Bees
Honeybees are highly social beings and have evolved to live together in a single collective unit called a “superorganism”.
This means that despite the hive consisting of up to 10,000 individuals, the honeybees act and behave as one functioning body.
At the core of the hive is the queen bee who is responsible for laying eggs to produce new bees in each summer season with over 150,000 eggs being produced.
Most of these eggs develop into female worker bees while a few become males known as drones whose only purpose is to mate with other queens from neighbouring colonies.
Leading up to swarming, which sees two-thirds of existing bees – including the queen – leaving their current nest never to return, the workers start treating her differently.
They feed her less and even begin shaking and biting her due to her lose weight required for flight.
The remaining bees at the original hive must agree on their new ruler before proceeding by under going an intense period of sound signalling with some ‘quacking’ heard.
If there are multiple contenders emerging from their Queen Cells then these will fight it out until there’s one clear victor.
A fascinating example of a superorganism in action, Honeybee Democracy works precisely through collective decision-making demonstrating why this group of insects can be hailed as an effective and brilliantly organized unit!
Honeybees Use Careful Inspection And Clever Evaluative Strategies To Find The Perfect Nest Site
Honeybees are meticulous about finding the perfect home for their hive.
To do this, they carefully survey potential nest sites, evaluating each one carefully to determine which is the best fit for their needs.
This was discovered by bee expert Martin Lindauer in 1955.
He suggested that the only way to know what honeybees are looking for would be to “ask the bees themselves.” This motivated one researcher to take his research and observations to Appledore Island off the coast of Maine.
He created a set of boxes with adjustable dimensions and placements around the island.
Through careful experiments and observation, he found that honeybees preferred a nest approximately 40 liters in capacity, located in an area with a small entrance (around 12 square centimeters in area) at the bottom, facing south.
Further research also showed that although other factors like moisture or height don’t seem to matter, they do still go inside and spend an average of 37 minutes making around 30 trips – essentially giving each possible site a full inspection before informing their hive mates of its suitability as a new home.
So it’s clear: Honeybees evaluate potential nest sites carefully to find the best possible new home.
How Honeybees Achieve A Consensus: The Important Role Of The Waggle Dance
Honeybees use a form of direct democracy to make decisions, rather than the representative democracy used by humans.
This is carried out by a group of scout bees that fly out and evaluate potential nest sites.
These scout bees then spread information about these potential sites through waggle dances, which indicate both the direction and distance to them.
The more enthusiastic the waggle dance, the higher quality of site it indicates.
As a result, these higher quality sites are given greater precedence and gain increased support from other scout bees.
Through this process, honeybees go through a consensus building process in which they gradually reach agreement on the best nest site for their colony without needing any central authority overseeing the decision making progress.
How Honeybees Make Wise Decisions Through Self-Limitation And Trusting Their Peers
Honeybees display a remarkable ability to make the right decision when it comes to choosing the best possible new nest site.
This was evidenced by an experiment conducted by the author on Appledore Island, in which five box sites were purposely positioned – one ideal, and four only acceptable.
Out of the five swarms, four opted for the best available option.
Though their success rate isn’t quite perfect – mistakes do happen occasionally – these are few and far between.
The reason for this lies in the method honeybees employ – rather than blindly following one bee’s opinion or preference, they actively seek out multiple sources of information before making a decision.
If a scout bee finds an ideal nest site but doesn’t seem to be passionately advertising it upon her return home, chances are that enough other bees have already investigated and agreed to move on from it.
This democratic process of decision-making is further aided by the fact that scout bees tend to become less passionate about their opinion over time.
No individual bee will champion an average site, leading to its eventual lack of support – something humans should perhaps strive to emulate!
To sum up: at least when honeybees might make mistakes in choosing a nest site, they do so only very rarely; due largely to their use of democracy as a decision-making strategy.
Honeybees Act With Remarkable Cohesion When It Comes To Moving To A New Homesite
When the time comes to move, a swarm of honeybees coalesce into remarkable cohesion.
It all begins when scout bees inspect potential new nest sites and report back to their hive.
Once they can see 20 or 30 other scout bees at a site, they initiate the move by piping out a high-pitched noise that alerts the other bees and causes them to raise the temperature in preparation.
Then, they begin buzz running, where they run across the swarm with their wings spread wide and buzzing loudly.
This was confirmed in 2006 through advanced computing technology that tracked each individual bee’s behavior in the swarm—the scout bees were observed multiple times shooting off to lead the way to their new home.
Finally, as it nears its destination the swarm slows down gracefully before filtering into their new home and beginning work immediately.
It’s incredible to think about how 10,000 honeybees are able to move from one location to another with such coherence and coordination.
This speaks volumes about their collective wisdom!
We Can Learn A Lot From The Democratic Decision-Making Process Of Honeybees
The democratic decision-making process of honeybees is incredibly fascinating, and it could be incredibly useful in enabling us to make better group decisions.
Honeybees work together as one organism – they each act as a neuron, playing a small but important role in helping to gather and process information so that the group can come to a decision together.
What’s particularly interesting is that honeybees all have the shared goal of keeping the hive safe and thriving, while this isn’t always the case with people.
So when we’re in situations where our interests match up – like at a town council meeting or a committee, for example – we should take note of the bees’ decision-making approach for inspiration.
The key lesson we can learn from honeybees is that each individual opinion matters just as much as everyone else’s when it comes to making a decision, meaning there isn’t necessarily one leader who makes all the choices.
It’s also important not to focus on only one solution, but look for multiple possibilities before committing; use bees’ approach which shows that once it’s clear an idea will definitely work, even without unanimous approval, pressing ahead with it is often worthwhile; and lastly, allow individuals within the group space to build up their own knowledge rather than relying on others too heavily.
By understanding how honeybees operate democratically amongst themselves and apply what we take away to our own lives, these lessons are sure to help us make better collective decisions in our everyday life!
Wrap Up
Honeybee Democracy by Thomas Seeley is a detailed look at the remarkable decision-making process that honeybees use when they need to move to another location.
These bees will send out scouts to potential new homes, and then spend a few days discussing their findings with each other in a tree.
This process of consensus leads them to make whichever choice is best for the swarm, and this can serve as an excellent model for us humans when it comes to decision making effectively.
Overall, Honeybee Democracy is an engaging and fascinating book that delves into the bee’s complex behavior and illustrates why their process of swarming can be seen as an example of democratic thought – even if on a more minuscule scale!
