# Social inhibition maintains adaptivity and consensus of foraging honeybee swarms in dynamic environments

## TL;DR

This paper presents a mathematical model demonstrating that inhibitory social interactions in honeybee swarms enhance their ability to adapt and reach consensus during foraging in environments with changing food sources.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel mathematical framework analyzing how social inhibition mechanisms improve foraging efficiency and consensus in dynamic environments.

## Key findings

- Inhibitory social interactions maintain adaptivity in changing environments.
- Direct switching of opinions enhances consensus and foraging speed.
- Model suggests experimental protocols for studying swarm foraging strategies.

## Abstract

To effectively forage in natural environments, organisms must adapt to changes in the quality and yield of food sources across multiple timescales. Individuals foraging in groups act based on both their private observations and the opinions of their neighbors. How do these information sources interact in changing environments? We address this problem in the context of honeybee swarms, showing inhibitory social interactions help maintain adaptivity and consensus needed for effective foraging. Individual and social interactions of a mathematical swarm model shape the nutrition yield of a group foraging from feeders with temporally switching food quality. Social interactions improve foraging from a single feeder if temporal switching is fast or feeder quality is low. When the swarm chooses from multiple feeders, the most effective form of social interaction is direct switching, whereby bees flip the opinion of nestmates foraging at lower yielding feeders. Model linearization shows that effective social interactions increase the fraction of the swarm at the correct feeder (consensus) and the rate at which bees reach that feeder (adaptivity). Our mathematical framework allows us to compare a suite of social inhibition mechanisms, suggesting experimental protocols for revealing effective swarm foraging strategies in dynamic environments.