DEE WILSON CONSULTING
Book Review:
Surprising Information About Bees
What a Bee Knows: Exploring the Thoughts, Memories and Personalities of Bees
Stephen Buchmann, 2023
For anyone interested in the persistent efforts of scientists to better understand the minds of organisms quite unlike ourselves, I highly recommend What A Bee Knows. The Author is a pollination ecologist who teaches at the University of Arizona.
Buchmann has an extraordinary story to tell, a story full of surprises discovered through many decades of careful observation and ingenious experiments. There are approximately 20,000 species of bees with brains which have about a million neurons compared to the 86-100 billion neurons in the human brain. Bees evolved from wasp ancestors about 130 million years ago; flowering plans evolved about 140 million years ago. Bees gradually evolved into effective pollinators who carry pollen, i.e., "plant sperm cells," to distant unrelated plants. "In temperate zone regions, bees pollinate about 80 percent of flowering plants." Some species of bees travel only a 150 feet, while others (such as the honeybee) can pollinate flowers more than eight miles distant from where they gather pollen. Bees feed on pollen and nectar, but a tiny fraction of pollen stuck to their bodies which they cannot reach "makes possible the pollination of wild flowers and crops alike." A single bee can pollinate as many as ten thousand flowers a day, according to Buchmann.
Bees and flowers, Buchmann explains, have a mutually beneficial relationship with competing interests: bees want to keep all the pollen they gather for themselves and other bees while flowers seek to retain some of their pollen even from dependable pollinators, Buchmann asserts. Some species of bees are anti-pollinators, while some flowers, e.g. orchids, "dupe male bees into thinking a particular orchid flower is a receptive, ready and willing female of their species," Buchmann asserts.
Re the minds of bees, Buchmann writes: " ,,, we now know that bees are sentient, they may exhibit self- awareness, and they possibly have a basic form of consciousness. Bees can feel pain and likely suffer. Some bees plan for the future by cutting resin mines into fresh bark ... They think and may form mental maps of their foraging routes. Bees remember the characteristic shapes and scents of their favorite flowers for several days. They make choices and can easily be trained to select various colors or odors. They can navigate complex mazes ... (and) can also learn to do highly unusual things such as pulling a string or rolling a ball to receive a sugar reward." There is a famous You Tube video of bumblebees playing soccer! Bees spend a large amount of time sleeping, though how long they sleep seems to depend on their social role, i.e., worker, forager, Queen. The question of whether bees dream remains unresolved.
Bees can see ultraviolet light and are able to see electrostatic patterns left on flowers from prior visits. One of the fascinating strengths of this book is the account of how scientists studying many different species of animals have extended their knowledge of the sensory experience and mental capacities of a wide variety of mammals, fish and insects. For example, bee experts have been able to decipher the visual experience of bees, e.g., unable to see red but sensitive to ultraviolet light. "A bee's vision is sixty times less sharp than our own. On the other hand, bees detect the microscopic textures and patterns on flower petals, much as a blind person can read the tiny bumps in a printed Braille book." It turns out the sensory world of insects is not completely closed to human understanding, and the more scientists carefully attend to the mental capacities of various insects, the more "up for grabs" and disputed questions of sentience, self awareness and consciousness become. It seems that in science as in other human endeavors, careful observation often leads to empathy, which may evolve into curiosity regarding the sensory and affective experience of other species.
-- Dee Wilson