Re:  Overmind or Group Mind of a Colony
 
The relevant publication here is:
 
"The honey bee colony as a superorganism"
Thomas D. Seeley
American Scientist, vol 77, pp. 546-553. (1989)
 
In a sidebar to the article, a forthcoming book is mentioned, I don't
know if it has ever seen the light of day (anyone know?).
 
I'll very briefly summarize...
 
The honeybee colony can usefully be described as if it were one
organism, or as if one organism were in control.  This is because the
discrete organisms (the bees) interact in very complex ways.  They have
evolved to fill an ecological niche with what is a very successful
strategy.  This strategy is 'intelligent' in the sense that it seems to
need an intelligence to make it work.  The innate behavioural responses
of the individual bees are what make this strategy work.
 
By analogy:  stupid things like individual consumers buying milk and
tv's combine under general rules called market forces which act in a way
that makes the economies of entire countries work.  No one who buys a
certain brand of milk does so with the idea of reducing supply by
increasing demand for the various widgits in the milk chain, and so
employing etc...  but that is the result.
 
I don't want to take the mystery out of things.  The real exciting
mystery is that the bees really are stupid little things, and yet they
accomplish so much, just by instinctive co-operation.
 
Phil