Bee colonies as model for multimodal continuous optimization: The OptBees algorithm

This paper presents the OptBees, an optimization algorithm inspired by the processes of collective decision-making by bee colonies. The algorithm was designed with the objective of generating and maintaining diversity, promoting a multimodal search and obtaining multiple local optima without losing the ability of global optimization, thus representing an innovation compared with existent bee-inspired algorithms. It has been tested in five of the twenty-five minimization problems proposed for the Optimization Competition of Real Parameters of the CEC 2005 Special Session on Real-Parameter Optimization, held in the 2005 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC). The results obtained suggest the suitability of the algorithm to exploit multimodality of problems, being successful in the generation and maintenance of diversity and achieving good quality results in global optimization.