Beijing, March 7 (Xinhua) - A recent study published in the prestigious academic journal Nature suggests that honeybees (insects of the genus Apis in the order Hymenoptera) can teach each other highly complex behaviors that cannot be learned individually - using sugar as a reward to teach one bee to solve a puzzle, which it then continues to train other bees to accomplish.
The research provides evidence that bees are capable of social learning of behaviors with a certain level of complexity, a capacity previously thought to be unique to humans.
The paper introduces the concept of culturally acquired and enduring behaviors, termed culture. Increasing evidence indicates that, like human culture, animal culture can accumulate, with subsequent behaviors building upon previous ones. The process of accumulating culture in humans involves highly complex behaviors that no individual can discover independently throughout their lifetime. Honeybees are social insects known to acquire non-natural behaviors such as pulling strings or rolling balls through social learning to obtain rewards.
Building on this, the first author and co-corresponding author of the paper, Alice D. Bridges of the University of Sheffield, UK, along with colleagues and collaborators, devised a puzzle box task to investigate whether honeybees could learn more complex behaviors from other members of the colony.
They designed a two-step puzzle box where bees needed to first remove an obstacle to open the lid, revealing a reward of sugar solution. Untrained bees could not solve the puzzle independently through repeated trials. In fact, training demonstration bees to complete the task typically took about two days and often required providing a reward at the first step. However, untrained bees learned to open the two-step puzzle box from the demonstration bees without needing a reward after the first step.
In conclusion, the authors of the paper suggest that their research findings provide evidence that honeybees are capable of social learning and may have the ability to transmit culture.
