Researchers at Queen Mary, University of London have discovered that bumblebees are able to find the most efficient routes among different computer-controlled artificial flowers. The bees learned to fly the shortest route possible between flowers even when the flowers were arranged in different orders. This very difficult mathematical "traveling salesman" problem - in which the fastest route between locations must be established without visiting each location more than once - takes supercomputers many days to solve. Bees try to find the most efficient route among hundreds of flowers by using devices such as angles of sunlight to maximize the efficiency of energy used to fly from flower to flower. Understanding these processes in bee colonies could aid in understanding network problems such as traffic flows, supply chains and epidemiology.
-compiled by Surabhi Bhatt
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