Honey Bees Inspired Optimization Method: The Bees Algorithm

The Bee algorithm is an optimization algorithm based on the natural foraging behavior of honeybees to find the optimal solution.

A bee colony consists of three kinds of bees: employed bees, on-looker bees, and scout bees. Employed bees carry information about place and amount of nectar in a particular food source. They transfer the information to on-looker bees with dance in the hive. The time of dance determines the amount of nectar in a food source.

An on-looker chooses a food source based on the amount of nectar in a food source. A good food source attracts more on-looker bees to itself. Scout bees seek in search space and find new food sources. Scout bees control the exploring process, while employed and on-looker bees play an exploiting role.

The basic flowchart of BA consists of the following steps. In step 1, random initial food sources are generated. The number of initial food sources is half of the bee colony. In step 2, employed bees are sent to the food sources to determine the amount of nectar and calculate its fitness.

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For each food source, there is only one employed bee. So, the number of food sources is equal to the number of employed bees. In addition, the employed bees modify the solutions, saved in memory, by searching in the neighborhood of its food source. The employed bees save the new solution if its fitness is better than the older one. Employed bees go back to the hive and share the solutions with the onlooker bees.

In step 3, on-looker bees, which are another half of the colony, select the best food sources using a probability-based selection process. Food sources with more nectar attract more on-looker bees. On-looker bees are sent to the selected food sources. The on-looker bees improve the chosen solutions and calculate its fitness. Similar to employed bees, the on-looker bees save a new solution if its fitness is better than an older solution. In step 4, the food sources that are not improved for a number of iterations are abandoned. So, the employed bee is sent to find new food sources as a scout bee. The abandoned food source is replaced by the new food source. Finally, in step 5, the best food source is memorized. The maximum number of iterations is set as a termination criterion which is checked at the end of iteration. If it is not met, the algorithm returns to step 2 for the next iteration.