Quck answer
Bees are known for their hardworking nature and ability to produce honey, but did you know they also have complex cognitive abilities? Here are six facts about how bees learn, think, and make decisions:
1. Bees have excellent long-term memory and can recognize human faces.
2. They use a dance language called the waggle dance to communicate the location of food sources to other bees.
3. Bees can solve complex mathematical problems to optimize their foraging routes.
4. They can reason abstractly and understand the concept of sameness and difference.
5. Bees have a sense of time and can learn to anticipate future events.
6. They can adapt their behavior to changing environmental conditions and learn from past experiences.
Wild Animals
A white sloe bush filled with flowers is where a bumblebee lands. Soeren Stache/picture alliance via Getty Images
As the spring season rolls in, bees come out of their winter homes and burrows. For most species, it’s their season to mate and some will start new solitary nests or colonies.
Bees and other pollinators play a vital role in human society. They are responsible for approximately one-third of the food we consume, which has a global value of up to $577 billion per year.
But bees have many other interesting attributes that are not so well-known. In my recent publication, “What a Bee Knows: Exploring the Thoughts, Memories, and Personalities of Bees,” I share my extensive experience studying these creatures for nearly 50 years to explore how they perceive the world and their remarkable abilities to navigate, learn, communicate, and remember. Here are some fascinating facts I’ve discovered.
1. Most Bees Do Not Produce Honey
Since honeybees are widely known, many assume that all bees are social insects that live in hives or colonies with a queen. However, only about 10 percent of bees are social, and most bee species do not produce honey.
Most bees lead solitary lives, digging nests in the ground or finding abandoned beetle burrows in dead wood to call home. Some bees are cleptoparasites, sneaking into unoccupied nests to lay eggs, similar to cowbirds that lay their eggs in other birds’ nests and let the unsuspecting foster parents raise their chicks.
A few species of tropical bees, known as vulture bees, survive by feeding on carrion. Their guts harbor acid-loving bacteria that allow the bees to digest decomposing meat.
2. Bees Are Intelligent
Although bees’ perceptions of the world differ from humans, they are intelligent creatures that likely feel pain, remember patterns and scents, and even recognize human faces. They can solve problems and mazes and use basic tools.
Research indicates that bees are self-aware and may have a primitive form of consciousness. During their six to 10 hours of daily sleep, their impressive brains — organs the size of a poppy seed that contain a million nerve cells — consolidate memories. There are indications that bees may even dream, and that’s something to ponder.
3. Bees Have Unique Sensory Abilities
Bees can identify flowers by detecting color changes at a distance. Adam Jones/Getty Images
Bees experience the world in a different way than humans. For instance, humans perceive the world through red, green, and blue primary colors. Bees, on the other hand, perceive green, blue, and ultraviolet primary colors.
Bees’ eyesight is 60 times less acute than that of humans: A flying bee cannot see the details of a flower until it is about 10 inches (25 centimeters) away. Nonetheless, bees can identify hidden ultraviolet floral patterns that are imperceptible to us, and these patterns direct the bees to the flower’s nectar.
Bees have incredible senses, including the ability to detect color changes at a distance and navigate mazes as well as mice can. They have a much higher flicker-fusion frequency than humans, which allows them to see bright spots of floral color that wouldn’t stand out to us. Bees also have a highly developed sense of smell, being able to detect chemicals associated with cancer and diabetes on patients’ breath and high explosives. They can feel tiny fingerprint-like ridges on the petals of some flowers, but are nearly deaf to most airborne sounds. Bees are fast learners and can even use tools, demonstrating social learning. They also pollinate with vibrations, using a method called buzz pollination on plants that have special anthers. When a female bumblebee lands on a tomato flower, she contracts her flight muscles to create powerful vibrations that eject pollen from the anther pores in just a few tenths of a second.
The bee collects pollen by hanging on one leg and creating “baskets” on her hind legs. After gathering from all the anthers, the bee moves on to other flowers. Buzz pollination is also utilized by bees on various fruits and vegetables. However, bees are currently facing problems such as habitat loss, pesticides, and parasites which are causing their decline. To assist bees, individuals can plant native wildflowers, avoid using insecticides or herbicides, and provide open ground for nesting. Stephen Buchmann, a pollination ecologist, specializes in bees and is an adjunct professor at the University of Arizona. This article was originally published by The Conversation and is reused under a Creative Commons license.
FAQ
1. How do bees learn?
Bees are capable of learning through a process called associative learning. This means that they can associate a stimulus with a reward or punishment. For example, if a bee visits a flower and gets nectar, it will associate the color, shape, and smell of the flower with the reward of nectar. Bees can also learn through observation, by watching other bees and copying their behavior.
2. How do bees think?
Bees have a complex nervous system that allows them to process information and make decisions. They can perceive color, shape, and scent and use this information to navigate their environment and find food. Bees can also remember and recognize landmarks, which helps them find their way back to the hive.
3. How do bees make decisions?
Bees make decisions collectively, through a process called swarm intelligence. When a hive needs to make a decision, such as where to build a new hive or where to find food, individual bees communicate with each other through dances and pheromones. This allows them to share information and come to a consensus about the best course of action.
4. How do bees communicate?
Bees communicate with each other through a variety of methods, including dances, pheromones, and vibrations. For example, when a bee finds a source of food, it will perform a dance that communicates the direction and distance of the food to other bees. Bees also use pheromones to mark food sources and to communicate with each other about the health of the hive.
5. How do bees navigate?
Bees use a variety of methods to navigate, including their sense of sight, smell, and the position of the sun. They are also able to detect the earth’s magnetic field, which helps them navigate on cloudy days or in areas with little sunlight. Bees are able to use all of these senses together to create a mental map of their environment and find their way back to the hive.
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