Tag Archives: Bumblebees

Study: Bumblebees Can Be Trained to Understand Basic Morse Code

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Bufftail Bumblebee (Western bumblebee): A recent study reveals that humans can determine foraging locations by analyzing variations in the length of visual cues.

The ability to process temporal information is essential for animal behaviors like foraging, mating, and avoiding predators. Although circadian rhythms are well-studied, there’s limited knowledge on how insects perceive durations in the second to subsecond range. Davidson and colleagues sought to assess the buff-tailed bumblebee’s (Western bumblebee) ability to distinguish between light flash durations in free-foraging tasks. Image credit: Miriam.

In Morse code, a brief flash or “dot” signifies the letter “E,” while a prolonged flash or “dash” indicates the letter “T.”

Previously, the capability to differentiate between “dots” and “dashes” was recognized solely in humans and certain vertebrates like macaques and pigeons.

Alex Davidson, a PhD student at Queen Mary University of London, and his team examined this ability in the Western bumblebee.

They designed a specialized maze to train the bumblebees to identify a sugar reward among two flashing circles, marked by long and short flashing intervals.

For instance, if a short flash, or “dot,” was linked with sugar, a long flash, or “dash,” would be associated with a bitter substance that bumblebees typically avoid.

Within each section of the maze, the locations of the “dot” and “dash” stimuli were altered, preventing the bumblebees from relying on spatial cues for their choices.

After mastering the task of approaching the flashing circles paired with sugar, the bumblebees were tested with flashing lights devoid of sugar, to determine if their selections were driven by visual cues instead of olfactory ones associated with sugar.

The results indicated that the bumblebees effectively learned to distinguish between light durations, as the majority headed straight to the “correct” blinking light duration that had been previously linked to sugar, irrespective of its spatial location.

“We aimed to investigate if bumblebees could distinguish among these various durations, and it was thrilling to observe them succeed,” Davidson noted.

“It’s astonishing that they excelled in this task, given that bumblebees encounter no blinking stimuli in their natural habitats.”

“The ability to track the duration of visual stimuli might imply enhanced temporal processing capabilities that have evolved for various functions, including spatial movement tracking or communication.”

“Alternatively, this impressive skill for encoding and processing time could be a fundamental feature of the nervous system, reflective of neuronal properties. Only further research can clarify this.”

The neural mechanisms that facilitate the tracking of these durations are still largely unclear. Current mechanisms known to align with solar cycles and seasonal changes are too slow to account for the distinction between dashes and dots of varying durations.

Numerous theories suggest the existence of either a singular or multiple biological clocks.

The revelation of insects’ capacity to differentiate between light flash durations will enable researchers to test various models using these “miniature brains” that measure less than a cubic millimeter.

“Numerous complex animal behaviors, including navigation and communication, rely on temporal processing capabilities,” comments researcher Elisabetta Versace from Queen Mary University of London.

“To explore the evolution of such abilities, adopting a comprehensive comparative approach across a range of species, including insects, is crucial.”

“Insect processing times highlight their utilization of minimal neural resources to accomplish complex tasks.”

“This insight holds implications for characteristics such as complex cognition in artificial neural networks, which should take cues from biological intelligence while striving for efficiency and scalability.”

This result was published in the Journal on November 12, 2025 in Biology Letters.

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Alexander Davidson et al. 2025. Bumblebee duration identification in the Western bumblebee. Biol. Let 21(11):20250440; doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0440

Source: www.sci.news

New study finds bumblebees can acquire intricate skills through social learning

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Culture refers to behaviors that are socially learned and persist within a group over long periods of time. Growing evidence suggests that animal culture, like human culture, may be cumulative. However, the accumulated culture of humans contains behaviors so complex that they exceed the ability of individuals to discover them independently over a lifetime. New research shows that the buff-tailed bumblebee (Western bumblebee) can learn how to open new two-step puzzle boxes and obtain food from trained conspecifics, even if they fail to open them independently.

Bufftail Bumblebee (Western bumblebee) socially learn behaviors that are too complex to innovate alone. Image credit: Ralphs Fotos.

“This groundbreaking research opens new avenues for understanding the evolution of intelligence and social learning in animals,” said study lead author Lars, a researcher at Queen Mary University of London. Professor Chitka said.

“This challenges long-held assumptions, paves the way to further explore the cognitive wonders hidden in the insect world, and even suggests the exciting possibility of accumulated culture among seemingly simple creatures. Masu.”

Professor Chitka and his colleagues designed a two-step puzzle box that required bumblebees to perform two different actions in sequence to access a sweet reward at the end.

Training bees to do this was no easy task, and we had to help them by adding additional rewards along the way.

This temporary reward was eventually taken away, and the bees were forced to open the entire box before getting the treat.

Surprisingly, while individual bees had difficulty solving the puzzle from the beginning, bees allowed to observe trained demonstration bees completed the entire sequence, including the first step. You just learned quickly and got rewarded at the end.

This study shows that bumblebees have a level of social learning that was previously thought to be unique to humans.

They can share and acquire behaviors that are beyond the cognitive capacity of individuals. This ability is thought to underpin the vast and complex nature of human culture, and was previously thought to be exclusive to us.

“This is a very difficult task for bees,” said study lead author Dr. Alice Bridges, a researcher at Queen Mary University of London and the University of Sheffield.

“They had to learn two steps to get the reward, and the first action in the sequence was not rewarded.”

“Initially, we had to train demonstration bees to include temporary rewards, which highlighted the complexity.”

“But other bees learned the sequence from the social observations of these trained bees, without ever experiencing the reward of the first step.”

“But when we tried to get other bees to open the box without a bee trained to show them the solution, they couldn't open it at all.”

This study opens up exciting possibilities for understanding the emergence of cumulative culture in the animal kingdom, beyond individual learning.

Cumulative culture refers to the gradual accumulation of knowledge and skills over generations, allowing increasingly complex behaviors to develop.

The ability of bees to learn such complex tasks from demonstrators suggests potential pathways for cultural transmission and innovation beyond the bees' individual learning abilities.

“This challenges the traditional view that only humans can learn socially complex behaviors beyond individual learning,” says Professor Chitka.

“Many of the most remarkable achievements of social insects, such as the nesting structures of honey bees and wasps and the agricultural habits of ants that farm aphids and fungi, may have first been spread by imitation by clever innovators, and then spread. , which is increasingly likely.'' They eventually became part of the species-specific behavioral repertoire. ”

Regarding this research, paper Published in the Journal on March 6, 2024 Nature.

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AD bridge other. Bumblebees socially learn behaviors that are too complex to innovate alone. Nature, published online March 6, 2024. doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07126-4

Source: www.sci.news

Bumblebees Learn from Each Other to Solve Complicated Puzzles

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Bumblebees may be capable of advanced social learning

David Woodfall/naturepl.com

Bumblebees can teach each other how to solve puzzles that are too difficult for them to solve alone. This finding suggests that these insects may use advanced social learning that has previously been demonstrated only in humans.

Previous research by alice bridges Queen Mary University of London has proposed that bumblebees could teach each other how to open lever puzzles to obtain sweet treats. And they preferred solutions they learned from their peers to solutions they had come up with on their own, as if the techniques were a cultural trend.

Now, Bridges challenged the bees to a more difficult puzzle box that required them to operate a blue lever and then a red lever in order. Even after 12 to 14 days of trying, the bees from three different colonies couldn’t figure it out on their own.

The researchers then taught nine bumblebees the key. But the training was so difficult that the animals initially refused to participate until the humans provided additional sweet rewards along the way, Bridges said. Once reintroduced to the colony, the skilled bee passed on its new knowledge to five other bees who had never seen the puzzle box before.

“suddenly, [naive bees] We were able to learn everything from trained demonstrators,” Bridges said. “When I could barely train, [the demonstrators] To do that. “

Until now, there was little evidence that non-human animals are capable of cumulative culture (defined as the ability to learn skills from other animals that cannot be acquired through a lifetime of independent trial and error). This feat allowed humans to create complex knowledge systems like modern medicine.

These findings “raise serious questions about this idea of human exceptionalism,” they wrote. alex thornton At the University of Exeter, UK his explanation on paper.

But we shouldn’t praise the cumulative culture of bees just yet. Elisa Bandini At the University of Zurich. She is not convinced that the experiment shows a behavior so complex that individual bees cannot develop it on their own. If the untaught bees had received additional rewards in the same way as the trained bees, they might have solved the puzzle on their own.

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Source: www.newscientist.com