Copycat Bumblebees

Like humans trying to pick a restaurant, bumblebees choose where to dine based on the amount of buzz a place generates, a new study finds.

Researchers at the University of Arizona trained bumblebees to feed at artificial flowers that had cotton wicks soaked in sugar water. Some of the flowers were green while others were orange. Without training, the bees tended to prefer on the orange flowers over the green.

Another set of bumblebees watched from within a transparent plexiglass tube as the trained bumblebees fed. As a control, a third set of watcher bees observed an empty feeding area that had flowers but no bees.

The researchers then switched off the lights and removed all the feeding bees. The researchers also replaced the artificial flowers with new ones that did not contain sugar-soaked cotton wicks and their locations were rearranged. To make sure there were no lingering smells from the previous set of trained bees, the researchers stationed fake bee models at some of the flowers.

The watcher bees were then allowed into the feeding area one at a time. The watcher bees that had observed the other bees feeding at the green flowers were twice as likely to choose the green flowers themselves. The watcher bees that didn't observe the live bumblebees feeding just went to the flowers where the fake bees were stationed (image above: a live watcher bee is on the left and a fake bee is on the right).

The study is the first demonstration of social learning in insects. "One of the cool things we're finding out from bees is that complex behavior and advanced forms of learning can come from small brains," said ecologist Bradley Worden, an author on the study.

Worden thinks that watching other bees is important for bumblebees in the wild because they don't have any other way of learning about where nectar-rich flowers are otherwise. Unlike honeybees, bumblebees don't do a dance that can communicate to other members the location of good feeding areas.

The study has been released online and will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Biology Letters of the Royal Society.

--Ker Than

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Credit:  University of Arizona: Bradley Worden