Can Bees Do Math?

Bees are mostly known for buzzing around, collecting pollen, and making honey...but who knew that they're also doing math problems in their free time?

In 2018, Australian researchers reported that bees understand the concept of "zero" as not having any, but now their research suggests that bees can do basic addition and subtraction problems.

A few decades ago, scientists suggested that math, or any higher level processing skill was limited to human and primate brains. After further research, dolphins were discovered to understand zero, and other spieces such as Alex the parrot and some spiders can do basic arithmetic.

Then the question was posed about honeybees.

Honeybee brains have just under 1 million neurons, compared to the 86 billion neurons in the human brain. This means that their brains are not only significantly smaller, they also possess a completely different architecture.

To explore what the bees can do, 14 honeybee students entered a Y-shaped maze where they would see one to five blue or yellow shapes. The bees had a choice to fly to either the left or right side, with one side containing one more element than the other.

The scientists wanted the bees to either add an element if the shapes were blue, or subtract if the elements were yellow. The bees were rewarded with sugar water if they chose correctly and punished with a bitter quinine solution if they answered incorrectly.

After 4 to 7 hours of intense training, the bees were put to the test without the reward or punishment. In two addition and two subtraction tests, the bees scored correctly 60 to 75 percent of the time!

But why are bees doing math?

It's entirely possible that bees evolved this ability because they are constant processing information going from flower to flower in order to collect pollen and nectar. They also have a lot of "neuroplasticity," which means neurons can easily develop in bees' brains. In other words, bees don't do math daily, but their brains are flexible enough to learn a new skill. Just like how humans learn how to play an instrument or solve a Rubik's cube.

Textbooks say that children around age 4 or 5 can learn how to do a similar level of math, typically taught when they enroll in school. So, if bees can add and subtract one from a number, can they perform operations such as 2 plus 1 plus 1 (operations 4 and 5 year old students are learning)?

Scientists hope to find out, meaning the honeybee students have more class work to do!