The Bees Algorithm is a new population-based search algorithm. The algorithm mimics the food foraging behaviour of swarms of honey bees. In its basic version, the algorithm performs a kind of neighbourhood search combined with random search and can be used for optimisation.

The Bees Story
By Prof. Pham
Once upon a time, not far from Cardiff Bay, there lived a multi-ethnic bee colony, the Bay Bees.
The colony was ruled by King Bee, a wise old insect originally from Syria. The King's loyal subjects included Afsin Bee (the King's Persian-born General), Ebu Bee-kir (a diligent scout of Ottoman descent), Jaynee Bee (a Siamese newbie), Shah Bee (an Asian tigress bee with Persian royal connections), Zai Dee (a mutated Asian tiger bee) and Markus Bee (the elusive spokesbee of the colony; click here to listen to Markus).
The colony was also host to a number of adopted bees. Notable among those were Mickey Bee (formerly an African wasp, subsequently a Big Bumble Bee), Gees Bee (an adopted sister of Mickey's who had previously been a musical Asian wasp unrelated to the famous British group), Vladi Bee (formerly a Balkan wasp, latterly a Mumbling Bee) and Antoine Bee (a Central European wasp that had emigrated to Sea City).
The colony was thriving, their hive buzzing with activity.
All the bees in the colony (with the exception of the King) laboured day and night to maximise the amount of food gathered. The way they worked has been captured in a rather neat optimisation algorithm known as the Bees Algorithm.
One day, Afsin Bee led a party of scouts (comprising Mickey Bee and his cousins Mike Pea and Eld Av, the latter two characters being wasps specially recruited from Sea City) on a mission to the island of Ischia to 'spread excellence' by disseminating information about the Bees Algorithm and other specialties of the colony.
With his General temporarily absent from the hive, the King ordered his remaining subjects to buzz off on vacation.
Cardiff Bay had never been so quiet.
Only the following chorus could softly be heard:

"Where are the Bay Bees gone? Where are the Bay Bees gone?
Where are the Bay Bees gone? Where are the Bay Bees gone?
Far, far away! Far, far away!"

Enn Bee: For those readers too young to know this, the above chorus was inspired by the 1971 No 1 single "CHIRPY CHIRPY CHEEP CHEEP" by Middle of the Road.