Hello !

We are 2 days away from the start of Spring in the Southern Hemisphere! And as you can guess, I'm thrilled about spring!

Last week, I was thinking a lot about what Hive Mind and Hive Intelligence are. Both these terms link strongly to social insects, insects that live in true social structures, such as ants, bees, and termites.

Hive Mind can be defined as the collective mental behaviour of a truly social insect colony, which can be regarded as a single living organism. This superorganism that consists out of many different individuals is like the cells of a normal organism. One individual will die very quickly if it is separated from the colony. If we use ants as an example, the ants care for the queen and brood, forage for food, build and expand the nest without anyone telling them what to do or giving them direct instructions.

Hive Intelligence can be defined as the learned behaviours that are spread throughout the colony. Although it is also strongly linked to social insects, it can be explained simply by a mammalian example. Chimpanzees can use tools, but it is not instinctive. Tool use is a learned behaviour of chimpanzees. Thus, each individual needs to learn how to use tools from other troop members.

Social insects also show the same kind of learning behaviour. If ants are placed in an enclosure with a water moat to keep them from escaping, they will drown in the moat at first. After a while, they will learn not to go into the water so they do not drown but might use the water as a gravesite for dead ants. The ants will learn how to float things on the water, and then they're only a stepping stone away from learning how to escape! Another example is the fact that ants can learn how to avoid noxious prey items and that the entire colony will then avoid such prey.

The distinction between Hive Mind and Intelligence is not so clear cut. The two continuously blur into one another and to draw a concrete line between them would be the wrong approach. The best way to differentiate between the two would be on a scale that ranges from Hive Mind (the basics of keeping the colony alive) to Hive Intelligence (something that can only be learned through experience and passed on).

If we look at the example of ants avoiding noxious prey items it would fall right in the middle of Hive Mind and Hive Intelligence. Because the ants will do everything to stay alive and avoid danger, which is Hive Mind, but to learn that a prey item never before encountered by the colony is noxious and should be avoided, falls into Hive Intelligence.

Have you seen any Hive Mind or Hive Intelligence examples? If you do, feel free to share them with me! If you have a photo or short video clip that you would be willing to share or wondering where it falls onto the Hive Mind or Hive Intelligence scale, feel free to send it to me and I will do my best to assist!

Weekly Top Shot:

Go to the ant, O sluggard;

consider her ways, and be wise.

Without having any chief,

officer, or ruler,

she prepares her bread in summer

and gathers her food in harvest.

Proverbs 6:6-8