Zombie Research Society
It’s been previously theorized that zombies hunt in packs because of a dependence on their sense of touch to identify prey. But ZRS Researcher, Haley Amara, suggests that a more developed social structure could 
be at work, citing behavioral evidence from the common bee.
She points out that bees, along with ants and wasps, are able to carry out complex tasks involving thousands of individual participants with little or no communication.
“They’re all doing their own thing, completely unaware of what their fellow bees are up to, but still they present a unified front, each of them marching towards a common goal.”
Amara goes on the argue that the aggressive behaviors created by the hive mind of bees is extremely similar to a typical depiction of a zombie outbreak. A horde of zombies doesn’t work together or communicate in any traditional sense. But then again they are only a real threat when they present a unified front, attacking as a group.
A colony of bees is often described by experts as being functionally one creature. Each bee is just a part of a single entity. Looking at the undead in a similar way would help to explain why they possess such a complete disregard for their individual well being. The destruction of one particular zombie is meaningless to the horde, so long as they continue moving forward towards the ultimate objective of devouring the entire human race.
I think the projections made in this article blur the distinction between individual and hive consciousness. One could better use a majestic, swirling flock of starlings as a model. A single atomic entity uses a few simple axioms to define their behaviour, in starlings it’s ‘Don’t crash into another bird’, in Zombies ‘Lurch, Groan, Eat’. What is really interesting is the phenomenon of a larger entity possessing characteristics that the individual members don’t; objectives, intent, awareness of position and purpose in a greater context. In Stephen King’s white paper ‘Cell’, he observes the retaliatory attack made by ‘Crazies’ on a human conurbation after the field researchers razed a dormant nest of Crazies to the ground. There was no evidence of individual intent in any one of the Crazies, nor local communication or conspiracy between them, but rather a higher governing body. I think that is an avenue that deserves deeper investigation.
if this is true then that would be a big problem and easy to find then we just bomb the epicenter
Hard to find the epicenter if the virus itself functions as the “Queen Bee”. One function above all others… replicate. Replicating itself would be the only thing a virus could do in relation to a hive mind.
On what evidence is this based as not one Zombie has ever been seen, found or presented to the world for study. A rotting mass of brains should not account for anything. The whole basis of a zombie would have to be a living being with a viral infection in which maybe this hive mind could occur sense it is not uncommon in nature an dthe human mind has untapped parts but the dead….don’t think, walk, talk eat…as no nuerolgical activity takes place in thier brain to run motor functions. A bad experiment in a lab could wipe out use all in a matter of months with the way global travel spreads disease. however In America these Zombies would have a hard time as 1 out of two houses has guns in them and not one gun but at least 3-5 guns and with a stock pile of ammunition with the prepresidental electial of Obama and his whole term people have stocked up on weapons and arms in fact more guns and ammunition have been sold in history in this time frame and the industry is still j=having a hard time meeting the demands even with other countries supplies surplus weapons and ammo…bring it on zombie nation and have fun as europe is a smorgase bord along with China and india but the Americas(south,central and north to include Canada…zombies also freeze), Koreas(south and north) and middle along side Africa is armed to the teeth….would be an interesting end game for your shuffling hords.
This would lead us towards there being some ‘Queen’ Zombie, directing the needs and heading up the organism at large… And, if we are to follow this analogy to it’s full extent, are there also ‘worker’ zombies & ‘soldier’ zombies?
Good theory, but there needs to be a reason for the zombies to actively co-operate and not fight amongst themselves, as given a Human is likely to fight back & at least destroy 5 or 6 of a horde before it devours them, why not just hunt other zombies who won’t resist as much?
The virus itself is like the queen bee. The virus’s main goal is to replicate itself and the zombies are her bees.
Some types of virus exist only to further the virus through manipulating the host. As Freya said the virus would basically be the queen. Not in a sense that one “thing” would be giving orders, but that each infection would rewire the human brain to do the same thing. Each zombie would, in fact, be a single entity, but they are all doing the same thing ‘walk-hunt-bite’ With each bite drawing the same result. So maybe “Hive mentality” is not really correct, but it pretty much has the same basic patterns. The virus would not “know” how many have spread. It would just keep spreading until-a) no more human host to infect, in which case it would likely survive by evolving into a slightly different form in order to infect whatever the next lucky life form is.(I’m thinking dog) or-b) we bring it to an end through medical means, quarintine AND all out war. And I think it would take all three.
Thank you Josh.. That is exactly the way I see it. I also think it would mutate and find other hosts… like rats. gah!
I was just thinking dogs, because they are bred into our world with the desire to be near people. They may not try to cuddle with infected peeps, but I doubt they would get too far away. Dogs, even strays and feral dogs usually camp out pretty close to people. It would make sense that they would trail a group of zombies, even if they didn’t like them. Rats too! I think rat zombies would originate in super populated areas like New York. Then it’s on to the great apes!!!! In which case we would all just be screwed!! HA HA HAAAAA!