ANALYSIS AND MODELING OF COMPLEX LIVING SYSTEMS

Individual optimality does not guarantee community optimality: why don't honeybees analyze dances?

V. Tereshko

Laboratory of biophysics of excitable media, Institute of theoretical and experimental biophysics, 3 Institutskaya st., Pushchino, Moscow region, 142290, Russia

Abstract: We developed a model of honeybee colony foraging based on reaction – diffusion equations. Employed bees transmit information about their food sources using dance, and job seekers in the hive can choose any dance they like and thus join the exploitation of the corresponding source. We consider two strategies of dance selection: a targeted one, when bees analyze information on the dance floor and choose the most energetic and longest dance corresponding to the most profitable source, and a simple random choice of the first dance they encounter. Modelling showed that the greatest profit (food influx into the hive) is provided by the random choice of dance, as paradoxical as it may seem at first glance. Optimization of profit by each agent for itself (targeted choice of dances) is rather a disadvantage for the colony, and “non-optimality” in dance choice can be the result of useful evolutionary adaptation.

Keywords: honeybee colony, foraging, optimality

UDC: 519.8

Received: 02.12.2024
Revised: 10.03.2025
Accepted: 13.03.2025

DOI: 10.20537/2076-7633-2025-17-2-261-275