Bee Business Model

Bees have been known to 'waggle-dance' in order to communicate the location of food to the swarm, but scientists recently discovered they do a different kind of waggling to help find a new home. The interaction between the scouts and the swarm involves principles of an open forum of ideas, frank 'discussions' and friendly competition, leading the researchers to conclude it to be 'a striking example of decision making by an animal group that is complicated enough to rival the dealings of any department committee ... The bees' method, which is a product of disagreement and contest rather than consensus or compromise, consistently yields excellent collective decisions.'

The communication, which almost always leads to the best new home, is fundamentally simple. When a hive gets too crowded, its queen and half the hive will swarm to a nearby tree and quietly wait while several hundred scouts go house hunting. The scouts return and report on their findings through dance - the better the housing site, the stronger the waggle dance. Strong dances attract other scouts who follow the first bee to the home cadidate, and the growing quorum returns and reports in the same manner. When a quorum reaches 15 bees, the scouts signal to the waiting bees in the swarm that it's time to warm up their flight muscles in preparation for takeoff, and the swarm moves to its new home.