Computational intelligence within a resource budget: The case of the honey bee (Apis mellifera) swarm

Abstract

AbstractThis study investigated the resource budget available to a typical honey bee swarm as it gathered information and decided which was the best of some 13–34 potential nest sites to move into and become its new home. After a brief description of the decision‐making mechanisms involved, the utilization of the swarm's finite energy, memory and carrier resources is described. It was found that each individual scout decision maker only carried enough energy reserves to provide for 2.6 days of visits to evaluate distant sites and, effectively, only enough memory space to remember the location and quality of approximately one site. Scouts, who only formed 4.4% of the swarm bees, consumed 22.8% of the swarm's energy budget, showing that their best‐of‐N computations were energetically very expensive. A typical swarm of 12,000 bees only contained enough energy reserves to last for 13.5 days after which foraging had to restart.