School For Bees Prove They’re Smarter Than You May Think

By: Ally D'Amico

Until recently, invertebrates, including insects, were thought to be lacking the cognitive skills used for learning due to their small brains. Behavioural innovation, or the emergence of newly learned behaviours, has been a topic of increasing interest since it is important for understanding how animals will respond to climate change. As the climate changes, different floral species may dominate ecosystems changing the type of flowers available to bees. These flowers may be shaped differently forcing bees to learn new techniques to feed on their nectar. Scientists have investigated these novel behaviours in vertebrates, however, research on how behavioural innovation occurs and can benefit invertebrates is lacking. A team of researchers at the Doñana Biological Station in Spain investigated if and how solitary bees learn new behaviours.

The researchers introduced naïve bees to an “arena” to test whether the bees could learn new tasks. The experiment was broken into 5 phases to assess different stages of behavioural innovation. In the first phase of the experiment, the bees were placed in the arena with four coloured blocks, two blue and two yellow. The blocks did not have any food rewards so the researchers could assess the exploration and shyness levels in the bees. The results of this phase were used to determine if behavioural attributes can influence the ability for a bee to learn new behaviours.

The second and third phase of the experiment taught the bees to associate one colour block with a food reward. To do this, a cup of sugar water was placed on one colour block while an empty cup was put on the other colour. When the bees were introduced to the arena, they inspected both blocks at random and began learning that only one colour had a reward.

Phase four of the experiment tested if the bees successfully learned the colour association in the previous phases. To ensure only the colour association was being tested, the researchers removed the cups from both blocks. If a bee that was trained to associate yellow blocks with a reward visited the yellow block first after being released in the arena it passed the test. If the bee visited the blue block first, it was considered a failure to the learning phase of the experiment.

The final phase of the experiment was the innovation test. The arena for this phase was set up identically to the second and third phase, with the addition of a cardboard lid on top of the cup with sugar water. The lid forced the bees to learn to lift the lid to access the reward.

The results of the study prove that solitary bees are able to learn colour associations and innovate new behaviours. 11 out of 29 bees in the experiment were able to lift the lid to reach the reward. These bees tended to be bolder and explore the arena slower in the first phase of the experiment. While learning how to lift a lid to reach a food source seems like a simple task, it is very similar in complexity to learning how to reach the nectar and pollen in new species of intricate flowers. The ability to innovate can allow the bees to exploit new food sources when the flowers they usually visit are not available, thus conferring a survival advantage to these bees. Additionally, understanding behavioural innovation in insects prove that even animals with small, unspecified brains have the cognitive skills required to learn.

Collado, M. A., Menzel, R., Sol, D., Bartomeus, I. (2021). Innovation in solitary bees is driven by exploration, shyness and activity levels. Journal of Experimental Biology. 224 (3), jeb232058.