Honeybee Democracy by Thomas D. Seeley: book review

Honeybee Democracy (2010) describes, in detail, the annual migration of two-thirds of a hive of bees leaving the old nest to produce a new nest - to establish a new home. In the process, before they establish their new hive, the homeless bees ‘hold a democratic debate to choose their new home.’

This book is about how honeybees conduct this democratic decision-making; how they evaluate potential sites through collective fact-finding; announce the locations to others; debate the selection of the best nest site; build consensus; and then pilot the entire swarm to its new home.

Seeley’s motive in writing this book is to outline 60 years of previous research on honeybee democracy, since Professor Martin Lindauer’s (1918-2008) research in the 1950s.

Seeley suggests that honeybees have a lot to teach humans about building functioning groups, because the group, the hive, is smarter than the individuals in it.

The honeybee, Apis mellifera, is the best-known insect on the planet – and it is highly social. The Queen Bee is not the boss, the decider – she is just the royal egg-layer (about 1,500 every summer). Seeley dispels assumptions and lays out the mind of the bee, and how it communicates with others. He describes the specific roles and responsibilities of each class of bee, their tidy habits, and their mutal respect for everyone’s core functions. The annual cycle is discussed in detail, in a step-by-step account of the unique process and procedures taken, from the time the swarm leaves the old nest to the creation of a new one (not far from the original).

Honeybee democracy is direct – ‘personally rather than through representatives’ – in which they debate ‘open competition among the proposed alternatives.’ Seeley also writes of swarms that failed to reach an agreement. He writes of his own long history of honeybee research and results – including decision-making waggle and dance techniques; the difference between leaders and followers; bee tracking; and sensory swarm apparatus.

Accompanying the book are illustrations and photographs, including communication patterns, flight paths, and the event cycle.

This is an impressive, easily understood, scientific account of honeybee democracy that humans can replicate – respect, organisation, processes, diverse solutions, rules of debate, and majority decision-making for sustainable resolutions.

I love the quotes too, such as the one by William Shakespeare (Henry V, 1599), who also suggests that people can learn order from bees:

‘… for so work the honey-bees,

Creatures that by a rule in nature teach

The act of order to a peopled kingdom.’

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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