Entities › Collective systems

Honeybee swarms

Swarms pick the best cavity through competition between scouts and a quorum. Stop signals provide cross-inhibition, which breaks deadlocks.

What’s measured

Counts of scout dances, support for each nest site, the quorum at the chosen site, and stop signals.

Evidence

• Swarms pick the best cavity through competition between scouts and a quorum. Stop signals provide cross-inhibition, which breaks deadlocks.
  Seeley TD (2010). Honeybee Democracy. Princeton UP; Seeley TD et al. (2012). Stop signals provide cross inhibition in collective decision-making by honeybee swarms. Science 335:108-111. doi:10.1126/science.1210361.

Research on collective intelligence studies how groups decide. It doesn't claim that the group itself has experiences.