Bees’ Habits Could Help Improve Servers

Swarm intelligence exhibited by honeybees gathering nectar could be a road map to improve the efficiency of Internet servers, a U.S. university reported.

Honeybees use limited resources and have no real central command when finding nectar sources, Georgia Institute of Technology researchers said in a news release. Researchers theorize the swarm intelligence of bees could be used to improve the efficiency of Internet servers faced with similar challenges.

Georgia Tech researchers developed a honeybee dance-inspired communications system to help single-task Internet servers move between tasks as needed, reducing the chances of a Web site being overwhelmed with and locking out potential visitors, the news release said. When compared with the way server banks normally run, the honeybee method improved service between 4- and 25 percent in tests based on real Internet traffic.

Researchers said they studied the bees’ strategies for distributing resources in a constantly changing environment to see how the strategies could be applied to Internet servers. For example, when scout bees find a spot to collect nectar, they return to the hive, dancing to give the location for the nectar, researchers said.

The research was published in the journal Bioinspiration and Biomimetics.