Bee Pollination
Studying how bees organize their flight patterns and communicate as a hive to most efficiently pollinate an area has led to a breakthrough on how to most efficiently route internet servers despite highly variable traffic to each site.
Biomimetic Designs
The Honey Bee Algorithm:
Similar to how bees can signal for their hive mates to join them if a good source of nectar is found, an algorithm was produced by studying bees to optimize systems' resource allocations. It also includes other factors that hives take into consideration, like the exact number of bees (resources) to reallocate towards new, valuable sources, as well as the optimal duration of their visits. This is calculated through a circuit of decisions to produce up-to-date information in real time through a compilation of server information.
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The need for continually evolving data is present in internet hosts, like IBM, so they can decide how to allocate its servers. Space in the company is rented to customers who pay according to how often their servers are visited. If IBM misallocates their servers, companies that are not being visited as much as was predicted are paying more money while having less revenue, while companies that have a sudden influx of visits could suffer from slow speeds if not enough resources are allocated towards them. For example, an oncoming hurricane drives traffic to a weather website, or a sports team's page-views peak when there is a big play at a game - so the resources cannot be allocated systematically but must be continuously reorganized in response to a changing situation. Using this algorithm has had a major impact on the $50 billion industry, allowing companies to earn 20-25% more income.
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The Science Behind Bee Pollination
The way the honey bees communicate how the direction and distance of a good source of nectar is through what is called the "waggle dance". In order to maximize the allocation of their worker bees, when a bountiful source of food is found, the bees returning from the source land in the hive, and perform a sort of figure-8 dance, wiggling on along the middle. The angle at which they are positioned as they wiggle communicates the angle to fly to get to the source. The duration of the dance also equates to distance from the hive, with every second of dancing equating to a distance of about 1 kilometer. Multiple sources of food equate to different bees doing dances specific to their own location.
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Because bees are able to see UV light even during cloudy days, the sun acts as their guiding compass. With a constant "up" point, the angle of their dance is in coordination with the sun. Bees are even able to account for the changing position of the sun throughout the day using their incredibly accurate internal clocks, adjusting the angle of their bodies accordingly.
