| Abstract | In the spring a swarm of honey bees may leave the hive and hang on a branch nearby while scouts go out and look for a new home. When a scout finds a suitable cavity, she returns to the swarm and performs a waggle dance on its surface to communicate the location and quality of the potential new nest site. Other scouts use this information to visit the nest site themselves and then they too return and dance and so recruit more scouts. At any given time, a number of nest sites may be being advertised on the surface of the swarm. Eventually the number of scouts at one site reaches a quorum. At that point the decision is made and the swarm prepares to take off and fly to its new home. Honey-bee swarms may contain up to 20,000 bees but only a few hundred scout bees participate in choosing a new home. This seems surprising given that choosing a good quality nest site is essential for the swarm's survival and that this decision needs to be made within a few days of the swarm leaving its original hive. Using both stochastic and differential equation models, I examine the dynamics of this decision-making process and present some hypotheses as to why keeping scout numbers low may enable the swarm to use a more flexible decision-making strategy and ultimately make a better decision. |
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