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If you're going to want to have it be believable to the players externally, then you're going to need those internally unnecessary mobiles - the workers building a structure (be it a house, shop, smithy, palisade, guard tower, etc.), others collecting raw materials (wood, iron, stone, etc.) from a nearby stand of trees/forest/mine or buying them from a merchant, farmers out in the fields, ploughing and sowing seed (to collect grain), etc. Situations as Lotius described (folks coming back to their settlement, getting ambushed by a thief, reporting it, militia/guard presence increases) would be far more interesting and fun to have than just an internal reporting to the hive mind.
The RTS comparison KaVir made is exactly what I envisioned when I read the initial post (actually, the StarCraft Zerg came right into my mind when I saw "hive AI"). If you do have access to a game such as Age of Empires, watch the computer player built its settlement. The AoE AI is geared towards making its empire richer, stronger and well-defended. It's been a while since I've played, but I think it does it in roughly that order (collect raw materials, establish a guard presence, build walls and towers). It is more warlike than you'll probably need, though.
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