Bees have incredible talents

There are currently more than a billion billion insects on Earth, representing a biomass far greater than that of all land animals, including humans. We now know how essential insects are to life, particularly pollinators, which contribute to the sexual reproduction of 80% of the planet's flowering plants, including many food crops. We know less about the extraordinary qualities they display on a daily basis, which are a source of inspiration.

The merits of ants have often been extolled, praising their intelligence on an individual level (sense of direction, perseverance in the face of obstacles) and collectively (ability to anticipate events, starting with winter...). In the "social insects" category, bees also demonstrate incredible talents. 

Ingenious architects...

Thanks to ethologist Karl von Frisch, we know that bees communicate with each other through specific, elaborate "dances" (the purpose of which is for the foragers to relay the details of their fruitful journeys to the rest of the colony). 

The aesthetics of the hives, with their perfectly hexagonal cells, show that bees are also brilliant architects, capable of a regularity rarely seen in the animal world; above all, they manage to optimize the available storage space while saving on building materials.

Recently published researchshows how bees manage construction challenges. Not all terrain is suitable for building a perfect hive, forcing bees to constantly adapt. They are able to adjust the size, shape, and even the angle of the cells, while maintaining regular patterns and thus the harmony of the structure.

Even more fascinating is the bees' ability to anticipate problems throughout the construction process. By identifying difficulties in advance, they make the necessary adjustments as they go along, saving themselves from having to completely rebuild the hive.

at the forefront of artificial intelligence...

During its short life, the bee performs all kinds of tasks in and around the hive. Some are stereotypical (such as collecting food or cleaning the hive), meaning that a stimulus (visual, olfactory) is enough to trigger them. Others, on the contrary, require the bee to adapt its behavior in order to navigate a constantly changing environment; this is particularly the case when it goes out to forage, sometimes several kilometers from home. 

Recent studies show the extent of the cognitive abilities used by bees during foraging, enabling them to navigate their surroundings and memorize flower species. Karl von Frisch (him again) was the first to define a methodology for deciphering the behavior known as "flower constancy" adopted by bees, i.e., their ability to remember the characteristics of flowers containing nectar.

Other studies show that bees can also distinguish shapes, particularly landscapes, despite their poor visual acuity. Like humans, who function by categorization, it seems that bees use sophisticated cognitive processing to interpret their visual environment. In particular, they appear to be able to detect the symmetry of objects, or group them according to the relationship between them (such as "identical to," "the same number as," or "above"). In other words, they are capable of abstraction.

We still have so much to learn from bees. However, like most insects, they are disappearing at an alarming rate, with hardly anyone batting an eyelid. Countless studies in recent years have warned of their decline, the reasons for which are well known: changes in land use, intensive agriculture, pesticides, the introduction of new species, urbanization, and, of course, pollution (particularly light pollution).

Protecting them means protecting the essential tasks they perform every day... and giving us the opportunity to continue learning from their many talents.