Formalising the Link between Worker and Society in Honey Bee Colonies

Honey bee colonies consist of tens of thousands of interacting bees. The colony has only limited centralised control and many of its functions arise from the self-organised actions of individual bees. We use an example from nectar foraging to illustrate how process algebras may be used to describe formally the behaviour of bees as communicating agents. Logical properties of a ‘colony’ of these agents are then established and a computer simulation is described which adds dynamics to the process algebra description.