E D IT J O H N G S E E L

he swarming behavior of honeybees constitutes one of the most astounding phenomena in group decision-making among animals: When a new queen is raised in the honeybee hive, her predecessor departs along with approximately 10,000 workers. Rather than en masse erratically searching around for a new location (as a group of vertebrates might), the bee swarm does something remarkable. It acts, in a sense, like a single being: pausing, collecting information, carefully con-sidering its options, and the