The term is also used in science fiction to describe a group of individual organisms that together share a single unified mind, distributing thought and communicating with each other through telepathic means. This is somewhat analogous to how colonies of social insects such as ants, bees and termites can seem to behave as if they were a single collective organism. An example of a book using a hive mind as a feature of the setting is Ender's Game, wherein the alien "Buggers" were all just components of hive minds centered on their queens.