Biology
Swarm Intelligence and Collective Decision-Making in Honeybee Hives
Quick fact
Honeybees have been solving the 'best-of-N' decision problem for millions of years; when a hive moves to a new home, they send out about 5% of the colony as scouts to search — and they consistently choose the highest-quality site among many, even when options are scarce.
Why this is interesting
When a honeybee colony outgrows its home, thousands of bees make a high-stakes decision: where to move? And they do it by a process that looks like a chaotic debate — yet they reliably pick the best site. How do they do it?