27 Jun THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES
The Remarkable Intelligence of Honeybees
I have to admit, I am absolutely terrified of bees!
I still remember an incident from the early 1970s when I was a young mum, proudly pushing my six-month-old son in his brand-new pram decorated with bright vinyl flowers. As I strolled down a quiet street, what seemed like hundreds of bees suddenly descended on the pram.
In complete panic, I did the unthinkable—I abandoned the pram and ran to what I considered a safe distance!
Thankfully, my little boy was completely oblivious to the excitement unfolding around him. As it turned out, the bees weren’t interested in my son at all. They had been attracted by the colourful vinyl flowers on the pram. Once they realised the flowers weren’t real and certainly weren’t on the menu, they simply flew away.
That frightening experience sparked a question that stayed with me for years.
Why did all those bees arrive together? How did they seem to know exactly where to go? How could something so small be so organised, so productive, so clean and so focused?
Curiosity eventually got the better of me, and I began reading about honeybees.
What I discovered was fascinating.
Scientists describe this behaviour as swarm intelligence—a remarkable form of collective decision-making. Honeybees are not unique in displaying this behaviour; similar group intelligence can be seen in schools of fish, flocks of birds, locusts, ants and termites. Yet the honeybee remains one of the most extraordinary examples.
One article that particularly captured my attention was written by Carl Zimmer, who interviewed renowned researchers Thomas Seeley from Cornell University, Kirk Visscher from the University of California, Riverside, and Thomas Schlegel from the University of Bristol.
Together, these scientists spent years studying how honeybees communicate and make decisions as a colony.
As Seeley beautifully described:
“If you lie in the grass in front of a hive, you see this immense traffic of bees zooming out of the hive and circling up and then shooting off in whatever direction they want to go. It’s like looking at a meteor shower.”
One question fascinated Seeley more than any other:
How do bees choose a new home?
To find the answer, he studied natural tree cavities previously occupied by honeybees. He discovered that bees consistently selected hollows with remarkably similar characteristics. Their preferred homes had a volume of around 45 litres, were positioned approximately four to five metres above the ground, and featured a relatively small entrance.
To test his theory, Seeley built 252 wooden nest boxes of varying sizes and designs and placed them throughout forests and fields. Time after time, swarms ignored unsuitable boxes and selected only those that closely resembled their preferred natural tree cavities.
It became clear that hive architecture is critical. A cavity that’s too small won’t allow enough honey to be stored for winter, while an entrance that’s too large leaves the colony vulnerable to predators and invaders.
Seeley later moved his research to Appledore Island, where there were no established honeybee colonies competing for nesting sites. He installed five nest boxes—four that were acceptable but unremarkable, and one that represented the ideal home.
In approximately 80% of the trials, the swarms chose the “dream home.”
The research revealed several remarkable principles behind honeybee decision-making.
The first is enthusiasm.
When a scout bee discovers an exceptional nesting site, she returns to the swarm and performs an energetic waggle dance, often completing more than 200 circuits. The better the site, the more passionate the dance.
If the site is only average, the dance is shorter and less enthusiastic.
That enthusiasm matters because it attracts attention. Other scout bees are inspired to inspect the location themselves. If they also approve, they return and perform their own dances, encouraging even more scouts to investigate.
The second principle is flexibility.
Interestingly, a scout doesn’t continue dancing forever. Each time she returns from inspecting the site, her dance becomes slightly less energetic until she eventually stops altogether.
Researchers found that bees promoting excellent sites continue dancing for much longer than those supporting mediocre ones.
This gradual decline prevents the colony from becoming locked into a poor decision. Even if many bees initially support an average location, a single scout returning from a superior site can completely change the colony’s direction.
As Seeley explains, this system works beautifully because individual bees don’t become stubborn.
Instead, each bee effectively says:
“I’ve found something interesting. I don’t know if it’s the best, but I’ll share what I’ve found and let the best site win.”
There is something profoundly inspiring about that philosophy.
Honeybees demonstrate that remarkable outcomes don’t require a single leader making every decision. Instead, they rely on communication, collaboration, openness to new information and a willingness to change course when a better solution emerges.
For creatures so small, their intelligence is truly extraordinary.
I hope you’ve enjoyed learning a little about the incredible world of honeybees as much as I have.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article.
