Some scientists think that after a nuclear holocaust, bees might become the predominant species on Earth. True? We hope we never find out, but look at some of the astonishing things bees can do.
Studies show that bees are far more complex than you might think, with a sophisticated system of communication. They report the location of food sources to other bees using a kind of waggling dance. The dances always show the direction of the food in relationship to a reference point—the sun.
In 1919 an Austrian zoologist named Karl von Frisch became one of the first people to study and understand the dancing language of bees. In a series of trials, he found that if the bee’s view of the sun was entirely blocked by artificial means, the dances became disoriented. If the view of the sky was replaced with a mirror that reflected the sky’s scenery backward, the dances were reoriented to the sun’s reflection. When von Frisch moved the hive into a darkened room and provided only the light of a flashlight, the dances were oriented to that artificial sun. Bees raised indoors with only a stationary electric light to guide them became hopelessly lost when their hive was moved outdoors under a constantly moving sun.
Popular theory once held that bees could see only in black and white. Von Frisch designed an experiment to test this. First he trained bees to feed at a clear glass container full of sugar water located on a brightly colored card. Then, when the bees left to return to their hive, an array of empty glasses was set out on cards of many different colors, as well as cards that were various shades of gray. Would the returning bees be able to distinguish the container that was sitting on the correct color, or would they be confused and go to the wrong dish? Over and over the bees returned without hesitation to the correct color, proving that they see in color. (The only exception was when the sugar water sat on a red card. Bees would often go to a dark gray card instead, showing that they are unable to distinguish the color red.)
As you read this sentence, your eyes are moving back and forth 100 times per second.
How do they do it? In a test to see whether they could distinguish shades of gray, the experimenter was surprised to find that bees were able to differentiate between two gray cards that looked absolutely identical to him. He eventually discovered that different companies manufactured the cards, and one reflected more ultraviolet light than the other—an important visual clue for a bee. Think of this: If bees were color-blind, flowers would not be so colorful.
One experiment testing the hearing of bees involved rigging a feeding station with an electrical current. A tone sounded three seconds before an electrified current was passed through the station. A different tone sounded when the current stopped, and would sound again periodically until the juice was turned back on. The bees soon learned the meaning of both sounds. They ignored the “safe” noise and reacted immediately to the “warning” noise.
Princeton University ethologist (animal behavior specialist) James Gould, one of the world’s foremost authorities on bee behavior, performed an experiment in which he placed a source of food next to a beehive. Once the bees discovered it, he moved it 164 feet (50 meters) away to see how long it would take the bees to relocate the supply. After only one minute, they found the food. Gould then moved it another 164 feet, and again the bees tracked it down again in less than a minute. Every time Gould moved the food another 164 feet, the bees found it without delay. Then he noticed that the bees were flying on to the next station before he had even moved the food.
In the next experiment, Gould placed a bowl of sugar water near a beehive and then, after it had been discovered by the bees, started moving it. Every few minutes, he moved the dish, but each move was four times longer than the previous move. He moved it 1 inch, then 4 inches, then 16 inches, and so on. Soon he was moving the dish more than 100 feet in a single jump. Amazingly, the bees soon caught on…and were waiting for him when he got there.
Rabbits can’t walk. They always hop or leap.
Bees like the nectar of the buckwheat flower, which exudes nectar in the morning. Bees know this and visit the flowers only during the morning hours. This led scientists to wonder if bees had a built-in sense of time, so they did some experiments. In the first experiment, they put out a bowl of sugar water from 10:00 a.m. to noon every day. After only a few days, the bees learned exactly what hours to come for the food and didn’t waste time coming early or late.
So next time you’re at a picnic and are tempted to swat a curious bee, remember how astonishing the honeybee is and leave it…bee.
• Honeybees are not native to North America. They were introduced here from Europe in the 1600s by the Puritans.
• Different bees have different dialects. A German bee cannot understand an Italian bee.
• Honey never spoils. In fact, honey placed in tombs in Southampton, England, over 400 years ago was still good when the tombs were opened.
• A typical American consumes about a pound of honey per year. A typical worker bee lives for one month and in that time collects enough nectar to make about one-twelfth a teaspoon of honey.
• Bees use ultraviolet vision—a specialized vision that allows them to see which flowers have the largest amounts of nectar.
• Honey comes in different colors and flavors—there are more than 300 unique kinds of honey in the United States alone. Why? Honey is made from diverse flower sources—clover, eucalyptus, or orange blossom, for example—and soil chemistry and honeycomb quality also influence how it tastes and looks.
• Another experiment: Will bees feed from water that’s been artificially sweetened with Sweet ’N’ Low? No.
Q: How many U.S. states have a royal palace? A: One—Hawaii (Iolani Palace).