[HN Gopher] The evolution of honey bee brains
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       The evolution of honey bee brains
        
       Author : rustoo
       Score  : 62 points
       Date   : 2023-06-23 20:40 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.u-tokyo.ac.jp)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.u-tokyo.ac.jp)
        
       | ChatGTP wrote:
       | Bees are awesome.
        
       | ProllyInfamous wrote:
       | Howdy fellow beekeeping enthusiasts -- I spent last weekend
       | extracting a bunch of honey from my personal hives in order to
       | both free up internal hive space and also to brew some mead. A
       | rewardingly "sweet" weekend!
       | 
       | Keeping bees has allowed me to learn more about my own species
       | than any other single activity -- that such complexity arises
       | from seemingly-simple critters continues to boggle my fleshy
       | little brain.
       | 
       | Instead of myself rambling on about apis mellifora, I'd rather
       | just recommend reading one of the most incredible and technical
       | (and beautiful) books ever: Dr. Seely's "HONEYBEE DEMOCRACY,"
       | which has a concluding chapter about the applications to
       | robotics/neural.networks from having observed simple bees for
       | decades.
        
         | liendolucas wrote:
         | Another gem book on bees is: "The Dancing Bees: An Account of
         | the Life and Senses of the Honey Bee" by Karl von Frisch.
         | Unfortunately I haven't finished because I left the book in
         | Argentina, but started it and is extremely interesting. More
         | info about the author:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_von_Frisch
        
         | mvidal01 wrote:
         | I also love that book a. Anything by Seely is usually a good
         | bet.
        
         | StarlaAtNight wrote:
         | THANK YOU for the book rec. i've been wondering how to spend an
         | Amazon gift card and I just found it here
         | 
         | Here's the book synopsis in case anyone else is interested:
         | 
         | How honeybees make collective decisions--and what we can learn
         | from this amazing democratic process
         | 
         | Honeybees make decisions collectively--and democratically.
         | Every year, faced with the life-or-death problem of choosing
         | and traveling to a new home, honeybees stake everything on a
         | process that includes collective fact-finding, vigorous debate,
         | and consensus building. In fact, as world-renowned animal
         | behaviorist Thomas Seeley reveals, these incredible insects
         | have much to teach us when it comes to collective wisdom and
         | effective decision making. A remarkable and richly illustrated
         | account of scientific discovery, Honeybee Democracy brings
         | together, for the first time, decades of Seeley's pioneering
         | research to tell the amazing story of house hunting and
         | democratic debate among the honeybees.
         | 
         | In the late spring and early summer, as a bee colony becomes
         | overcrowded, a third of the hive stays behind and rears a new
         | queen, while a swarm of thousands departs with the old queen to
         | produce a daughter colony. Seeley describes how these bees
         | evaluate potential nest sites, advertise their discoveries to
         | one another, engage in open deliberation, choose a final site,
         | and navigate together--as a swirling cloud of bees--to their
         | new home. Seeley investigates how evolution has honed the
         | decision-making methods of honeybees over millions of years,
         | and he considers similarities between the ways that bee swarms
         | and primate brains process information. He concludes that what
         | works well for bees can also work well for people: any
         | decision-making group should consist of individuals with shared
         | interests and mutual respect, a leader's influence should be
         | minimized, debate should be relied upon, diverse solutions
         | should be sought, and the majority should be counted on for a
         | dependable resolution.
         | 
         | An impressive exploration of animal behavior, Honeybee
         | Democracy shows that decision-making groups, whether honeybee
         | or human, can be smarter than even the smartest individuals in
         | them.
        
         | namanyayg wrote:
         | I for one would be interested in learning about your
         | perspective, what do bees teach us about humans?
        
         | zamfi wrote:
         | It took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to register
         | apis mellifora as anything other than APIs mellifora.
        
           | StarlaAtNight wrote:
           | This might be the most Hacker News comment I've ever seen
           | 
           | Love this site
        
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       (page generated 2023-06-24 23:02 UTC)