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Hive Mind

Read this wonderful essay on the social life and communication among bees. While we can marvel at the level of sophistication that a creature so small can achieve, there is some cold comfort in knowing our problems are not dissimilar: 

A dark side of bee social life has also been uncovered: While honeybees are generally collaborative, accurate and efficient, they are also capable of error, robbery, cheating and social parasitism. They might even have emotions, exhibiting both pessimism and dopamine-induced mood swings that are analogous to human highs and lows. 

That is each bee being its own separate entity but they also operate in hive mode.

A bee swarm, in other words, is a remarkably effective democratic decision-making body in motion, which bears resemblance to some processes in the human brain and human society. Seeley went so far as to claim that the collective interactions of individual bees were strikingly similar to the interactions between our individual neurons when collectively arriving at a decision. 

So much to learn from creatures we co-exist with. If only humans could work together for the collective good the same way - looking at wins and losses as if it were for the benefit of the cells in their own body.  


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