THEY COULD WELL BE THE LINCHPIN HOLDING EARTH’S ENTIRE ECOSYSTEM TOGETHER… SO IT’S NO WONDER THEY’RE BUSY. HERE’S EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE IMPORTANT INSECTS THAT ARE UNDER THREAT
by DR HELEN PILCHER (@helenpilcher1) Helen is an author, speaker and science communication consultant with a PhD in cell biology.
Bees are winged insects that feed on nectar and pollen, and sometimes make honey. There are around 20,000 bee species, of which 270 live in Britain. More than 90 per cent of bee species are solitary, but the remainder, which includes honeybees and bumblebees, live socially in colonies that incorporate a single queen, female workers and male drones.
The biggest bee – Wallace’s giant bee – grows up to 4cm long, while the workers of some tiny, stingless bees are smaller than a grain of rice. Bees are found on every continent, except Antarctica, and in every habitat that contains insect-pollinated flowering plants. They pollinate many of the plants that we depend on for food and yet they’re in decline. The number of bee species has been decreasing for decades and, in Britain, the insects have been lost from a quarter of the places where they used to be found 40 years ago.
How intelligent are bees?
Bees are highly intelligent creatures. They can count, solve puzzles and even use simple tools.
In one experiment, bees were trained to fly past three equally spaced, identical landmarks to reach a sugary reward that was placed 300m away. When the number of landmarks was subsequently reduced, the bees flew much further, and when the number of landmarks was increased, the bees landed at a shorter distance. This suggests that the bees were counting the landmarks to help them decide where to land.
In another study, scientists created a puzzle box that could be opened by rotating a lid to access a sugar solution. When a red tab was pushed, the lid rotated clockwise. When a blue tab was pushed, it spun the other way. Not only could bees be trained to solve the puzzle, but they could also learn to solve the problem themselves, by watching other bees complete it.
Regarding tool use, Asian honeybees are known to collect and smear fresh animal faeces around the entrance to their nest, in order to deter predatory giant hornets. It might smell a bit off, but this still counts as tool use.
Scientists had previously shown that bees can learn to use tools in the lab, but the faeces discovery from 2020 was the first observation of tool use by bees in the wild.
How do bees communicate?
Bees have two primary modes of communication: express
