As long as they attract with good bait, bumblebees can be trained to hit the ball. This is the conclusion of American scientists made in the research published in the journal “Science” on February 23.
To find out if bees can learn to manipulate an object that is totally foreign to their natural life, scientists have trained bees to roll a small ball the size of their own to their destination. The rewards for bees hitting the ball are sweet sugars.
Some bees were trained by watching their “teammates” perform a mission, while another group of bees were shown how the ball rolled using a magnet placed below.
Bees can learn and practice a skill that is not directly related to their primary mission.
The results showed that the bumble bee’s learning ability and performance appeared to improve after tracking the “performance” of other bees. Even bees also know how to choose to roll balls closer to the target than balls that are far from the target they are normally trained on.
The discovery of the bumblebee’s special abilities provides the first evidence that bees can learn and practice a skill without being directly tied to their primary task, which is foraging.
For a long time, the ability to learn to be able to perform a complex action such as hitting a target was often only known to higher animals such as humans, primates, animals and seabirds, not the little insects.
Previously published studies show that bees can learn to pull a string and other simple skills to have fun.
However, it is believed that the scope of these studies is limited due to the skills mentioned above related to the natural functions of bees.
