Bees ‘play’ just like humans, study finds

By William On Oct 27, 2022

Bumblebees are more playful than we’ve given them, a new study suggests.

Scientists in London have set up cameras around a specially created miniature arena to film bumblebees and how they interact with tiny wooden balls.

As the clips show, the bees tried their best to roll the balls repeatedly, despite there being no apparent incentive to do so.

The cute images suggest that the insects ‘play’ just like humans, adding to the mounting evidence that bees can experience positive ‘feelings’.

Researchers filmed bumblebees playing with painted wooden balls to answer the question, “Do bumblebees play?”

Scientists from Queen Mary University of London set up cameras around a specially made miniature arena to fill bumblebees and how they interact with toy balls

DO THOSE ANIMALS PLAY?

Play is not limited to humans, but is a phenomenon common to many animal species.

It is thought to contribute to the healthy development and maintenance of an animal’s cognitive and motor abilities, which can be beneficial for foraging strategies, for example, and is considered an important aspect of animal welfare.

The most obvious examples of play come from large-brained mammals and birds, but research on play in other animals is limited.

Source: Galpayage et al (2022)

The research paper, titled ‘Do bumblebees play?’, was published today in the journal animal behavior.

“It’s certainly breathtaking and sometimes funny to watch bumblebees show something like play,” said study author Samadi Galpayage of Queen Mary University in London.

“They approach and manipulate this ‘toy’ over and over again.

“It just goes to show that, despite their small size and small brains, they are more than little robotic creatures.

“They can experience some kind of positive emotional state, even if they’re rudimentary, like other larger fluffy or not-so-fluffy animals.”

“Findings like these have implications for our understanding of the feel and wellbeing of insects and will hopefully encourage us to increasingly respect and protect life on Earth.”

For the study, researchers filmed 45 bumblebees as they made their way through a specially created “experimental arena.”

It is designed to give them the option to walk through a clear path to reach a feeding area or to deviate from this path to an area with 18 wooden balls.

In total, 12 of the balls were painted yellow or purple, while the remaining six balls had their original wooden color.

The arena is designed to allow bees to walk through a clear path to reach a feeding area or to deviate from this path into areas with wooden balls. Shown here is the experimental setup with sucrose (S) and pollen (P) marked

In total, 12 of the balls were painted yellow or purple, while the remaining six balls had their original wooden color

According to the team, repeated rolling behavior suggested the act was voluntary and ‘inherently rewarding’ for the bees

Bumblebees FEEL PAIN AND SHOULD BE INCLUDED IN ANIMAL WELFARE LAWS

Researchers at Queen Mary University of London have revealed that bumblebees can feel pain.

In the study, the team showed that bumblebees can alter their response to painful stimuli in the same way as other animals known to feel pain.

“If insects can feel pain, people have an ethical obligation not to cause them unnecessary suffering,” said Matilda Gibbons, lead author of the study.

‘But the UK’s animal welfare laws don’t protect insects – our study shows that perhaps they should.’

The sex of individual bees was also identified (28 females and 17 males) when they were placed in the arena, which was connected to a nest.

The experiment was performed for three hours every day for 18 days before the video images were analyzed.

A total of 910 ball-rolling actions of the 45 bumblebees were recorded.

Individual bees rolled balls between one and 44 times on an experimental day, and between one and 117 times over the duration of the experiment.

According to the team, the repeated behavior suggested that ball rolling was voluntary and “inherently rewarding” for the bees.

This was supported by another experiment in which an additional 42 bees were trained to find freely moving balls in one of two differently colored chambers.

They found that the bees had a preference for the color of the room they had rolled the balls in when given the choice.

The study also found that younger bees rolled more balls than older bees, reflecting the behavioral patterns seen in mammals, including humans.

Young children and other juvenile mammals, as well as birds, are the most playful, previous research has found.

Interestingly, male bees rolled the balls longer than their female counterparts — but the researchers insist they weren’t trying to mate with the objects.

The research paper, titled ‘Do bumblebees play?’, was published today in the journal Animal Behavior

“When male bumblebees try to mate, they lie on top of a female and, holding her with their legs, try to insert their genitals,” they explain.

“However, we have never seen male bees turning their genitals inward while in contact with the balls.”

Rolling balls did not contribute to survival strategies, such as collecting food, cleaning up messes or mating and was done under stress-free conditions, indicating that the bees were just playing.

The research builds on previous experiments at Queen Mary University that taught bumblebees to score goals by rolling a ball at a target in exchange for a reward.

They had to move a pea-sized ball to a target by ‘kicking’ it and getting a drop of sweet nectar when they scored.

Bumblebees have a special flying technique that allows them to carry almost their own body weight in nectar

Bumblebees are the heavy hitchhikers of the insect world, able to fly back to the hive with nearly their own body weight in nectar, a 2020 study found.

American scientists discovered that bees can carry up to 80 percent of their own body weight while flying.

To do this, they can use a peculiar ‘economy mode’ flying technique that allows them to use less energy when carrying heavy loads.

The researchers measured the energy that bumblebees expend in a specially designed chamber — an emptied snow globe.

Since bumblebees feed their flight on the nectar they carry, they need to lighten as they fly.

As they become lighter, they will need to use less energy to keep them in the air, the researchers initially thought.

However, the team found that the bees could expend less energy per unit load if they were more heavily loaded.