Intelligence
Recent research has provided insight into some stunning cognitive capabilities
for such a tiny brain, as well as some especially fascinating anecdotes
that liken bees to humans. For example, just like the human capacity to
recognize faces, honey bees show the ability to discriminate between two
different human faces. A major feature of this trait in humans is that
it breaks down when the face is inverted 180 degrees. This same feature
was observed in honey bees.
Further, bees can count up to four objects when they are encountered sequentially
during flight. It appears that bees can navigate to food sources by maintaining
a running count of prominent landmarks that are passed en route, provided
this number does not exceed four.
Sleep
Children often ask what bees do at night, wondering if they are always
busy doing something, or if they too idle sometimes in front of the T.V.
We know from ancient times that the sleep of the laborer is sweetest.
Accordingly, honey bee foragers are among the first invertebrates for
which sleep behavior has been described. Foragers have strong circadian
rhythms; they are active during the day and sleep during the night moving
through three sleep stages. However, young bees exhibit sleep behavior
consisting of the same stages as observed in foragers yet pass more frequently
between the three and stay longer in the lightest sleep stage. These differences
in sleep architecture represent evidence for plasticity in sleep behavior
in insects. The harder they work - the sounder they sleep!
Memory
During evolution, honey bees have developed sophisticated sensory systems
and learning and memorizing capacities, essential mechanisms that do not
differ drastically from those of vertebrates.
To forage successfully, a bee has to learn and remember
not only the color and shape of flowers that contain nectar and pollen,
but also how to get to them. Since the species of flowers that are in
bloom in the morning are likely to be replaced by a different species
at a different location in the afternoon, the bee has evolved an impressive
ability to learn and memorize local features and routes, as well as the
time of blooming, quickly and accurately. Thus, having found a nectar-bearing
flower at a particular time on a particular day, a forager can remember
the task and the time at which it was completed, and visit the flower
at the same place and time on the following day.
The time sense of the honey bee can modulate their response
to a local stimulus according to the time of day. Honey bees can learn
scents or colors in a time-linked process and remember them in a 24-hour
cycle. Circadian systems permit organisms to measure time for adaptively
significant purposes. Bees synchronize their behavior with daily floral
rhythms, foraging only when nectar and pollen are at their highest levels.
At other times, they remain in the hive, conserving energy that otherwise
would be exhausted on nonproductive foraging flights.
The processes of learning and remembering are undoubtedly more sophisticated in primates and mammals than in insects, but there seems to be a continuum in these capacities across the animal kingdom. The abilities of an animal seem to be governed largely by what it needs in order to pursue its lifestyle, rather than whether or not it possesses a backbone. The properties of learning and memory in insects have been shown to be well suited to the requirements of the tasks that they have to perform. Honey bees can plan their activities in time and space, and use context to determine which action to perform and when.
