Hugh Pickens writes "The way bumblebees search for food could help detectives hunt down serial killers because just as bees forage some distance away from their hives, so murderers avoid killing near their homes, says a University of London research team. The researchers' analysis describes how bees create a "buffer zone" around their hive where they will not forage, to reduce the risk of predators and parasites locating the nest. It turns out that this pattern of behavior is similar to the geographic profile of criminals stalking their victims. "Most murders happen close to the killer's home, but not in the area directly surrounding a criminal's house, where crimes are less likely to be committed because of the fear of getting caught by someone they know," says Dr Nigel Raine. Instead of using information about the distribution of flowers visited by bees to explain the insects' behavior, criminologists' models will use details about crime scenes, robbery locations, abandoned cars, even dead bodies, to hone the search for a suspect. "Bees have much simpler brains and so understanding how bees are recruited to flowers is much easier than understanding the complex thoughts of a serial murderer," Dr Raine added."
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