Clustering experiments

It is well known that bees cluster together in cold weather, in the process of swarming (when the ``old'' queen leaves with part of the colony) or absconding (when the queen leaves with all the colony) and in defense against intruders such as wasps or hornets. In this paper we describe a fairly different clustering process which occurs at any temperature and independently of any special stimulus or circumstance. As a matter of fact, this process is about four times faster at 28 degree Celsius than at 15 degrees. Because of its simplicity and low level of ``noise'' we think that this phenomenon can provide a means for exploring the strength of inter-individual attraction between bees or other living organisms. For instance, and at first sight fairly surprisingly, our observations showed that this attraction does also exist between bees belonging to different colonies. As this study is aimed at providing a comparative perspective, we also describe a similar clustering experiment for red fire ants.