Effort estimation is one of the important and challenging tasks in software development. Many algorithmic models have been used to estimate the software development effort which needs to be measured accurately such that there is reduction in the gap between the actual effort and estimated effort. In the recent past many nature inspired optimization techniques have gained popularity as an efficient tool to estimate the software development effort. These optimization techniques are used to optimize the parameters of other models. One such technique is bee colony optimization which is based on the natural behavior of bees. This paper presents a review on the use of bee colony optimization for software development effort estimation.