Overview
Dr. Thomas D. Seeley is the Horace White Professor Emeritus in Biology at Cornell University. He is based in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, where he teaches courses on animal behavior and does research on the behavior, social life, and ecology of honey bees. His work is summarized in six books: Honeybee Ecology (1985), The Wisdom of the Hive (1995), Honeybee Democracy (2010) Following the Wild Bees (2016), The Lives of Bees (2019), and Piping Hot Bees and Boisterous Buzz-Runners (2024). Thomas D. Seeley Amazon page.
Research Focus
From 1980 to 2010, I focused my research on understanding the phenomenon of swarm intelligence (SI): the solving of cognitive problems by a group of individuals who pool their knowledge and process it through social interactions. It had long been recognized that a group of animals, relative to a solitary individual, can do such things as capture large prey more easily and counter predators more effectively. In the 1980s, it was realized that a group of animals, with the right organization, can solve cognitive problems with an ability that far exceeds the cognitive ability of any one individual. Thus, SI is a means whereby a group can overcome some of the cognitive limits of its members. SI has been investigated mainly in social insects (ants, termites, social wasps, and social bees) but has relevance to other animals, including humans. Wherever there is collective decision-making—for example, in democratic elections, committee meetings, and prediction markets—there is a potential for SI.
From 1980 to 1995, I directed most of my efforts at understanding how a honey bee colony solves the problem of allocating its foragers across an ever-changing landscape of flower patches so that it gathers its food efficiently, in sufficient quantity, and with the correct nutritional mix. This work is reviewed in detail in my book The Wisdom of the Hive (1995, Harvard University Press). From 1995 to 2010, I concentrated on figuring out how a swarm of honey bees chooses a new home. This problem arises when a colony reproduces and the old queen bee and some ten thousand worker bees leave the parental hive to produce a daughter colony. The emigrating bees settle on a tree branch in a beard-like cluster and then hang there together for several days. During this time, these homeless insects do something truly amazing: they hold a democratic debate to choose their new homesite. Exactly how they do so is reviewed in my book Honeybee Democracy (2010, Princeton University Press).
Remarkably, there are intriguing similarities between how the bees in a swarm and the neurons in a brain are organized so that even though each unit (bee or neuron) has limited information and limited intelligence, the group as a whole makes first-rate collective decisions. For example, in both systems the process of making a choice consists of a competition between the options to accumulate support (bee visits or neuron firings). Also, in both systems the winner of the competition is determined by which option first accumulates a critical level, or quorum, of support. Consistencies like these indicate that there are general principles of organization for building groups that are smarter than the smartest individuals in them.
My analyses of collective decision-making by honey bee colonies indicate that a group will possess a high level of collective (swarm) intelligence if within the group there is:
1) diversity of knowledge about the available options,
2) open and honest sharing of information about the options,
3) independence in the members’ evaluations of the options,
4) unbiased aggregation of the members’ opinions on the options, and
5) leadership that fosters but does not dominate the discussion.
From 2011 to the present, I have focused my research on understanding why wild colonies of honey bees are thriving while those living in beekeepers' hives are experiencing high levels of mortality. I have studied how honey bees live in nature and have learned how this differs markedly from how these bees live under the management of beekeepers. These investigations guided me to advocate a new approach to beekeeping: "Nature-based Beekeeping." This approach enables honey bees to use the toolkit of survival skills their species has acquired over the past 30 million years, and to evolve solutions to the new challenges they face today.
In 2024, I published a book that presents short stories about my scientific journey over the previous 50 years. In it, I describe how I solved 20 of the most compelling mysteries of honey bee behavior. This detective work includes describing the natural homes of honey bees and deciphering the mysterious piping, shaking, and tremble dance communication behaviors of these amazing little creatures.
My books:
Seeley, T.D. 1985. Honeybee Ecology. Princeton University Press.
Seeley, T.D. 1995. The Wisdom of the Hive. Harvard University Press.
Seeley, T.D. 2010. Honeybee Democracy. Princeton University Press.
Seeley, T.D. 2016. Following the Wild Bees. Princeton University Press.
Seeley, T.D. 2019. The Lives of Bees. Princeton University Press.
Seeley, T.D. 2024. Piping Hot Bees and Boisterous Buzz-Runners. Princeton University Press.
