Models for Honeybee House-Hunting

From time to time, colonies of honeybees (Apis species) need to come to an effective consensus about the choice of a new home, or at least what direction to set out in to arrive at a new home. This decision is made by many bees interacting with one another in simple ways to make a good choice. The western honey bee Apis mellifera generates new colonies by swarming. In the spring, half the bees in the colony, including the old queen leave the hive and settle on a branch or other fixed object nearby. From there scouts go out to search for suitable new nesting cavities for the swarm. When a scout finds a suitable cavity, she returns to the swarm and advertises the potential nest site through doing a waggle dance. The characteristics of these dances enable the swarm to choose a suitable site. We explore via mathematical models how the characteristics of these dances enable the swarm to optimise its nest site choice and consider the effect of scout numbers and swarm size on this process. The dwarf honeybee (Apis florea) is an open nesting species whose combs hang from shaded branches in tropical forests. From time-to-time a colony will move nest site. To do this, the colony needs only to determine a suitable direction to set out. The final decision is made on arrival in a new patch of forest. This generates a different type of decision-making process to Apis mellifera decisions, although it is still based on waggle dances. We present a model for A. florea decisions and show how these colonies use ideas of vector algebra to determine which direction to go.

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