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Science News for Kids: Snapshot: Copybees
Baby brothers and sisters aren't the only copycats in town. Bumblebees imitate each other,Basic Building Blocks|outlet pandora jewelry|whole,clarks kids shoes, too.
In one study, researchers at Queen Mary University of London put a "demonstrator" bee on a ######## flower of a particular color while other bees watched. Afterwards, the observer bees tended to go to ######## flowers of the same color. When the scientists put the demonstrator bee on ######## flowers of a different color instead,computerized embroidery machine|sea monsters krake, the other bees also often made the switch.
Brad Worden
In another study, researchers from the University of Arizona in Tucson went a step further. The scientists used bees that had been trained to visit either orange or green ######## flowers. They also used a group of bees that had never seen these kinds of ######## flowers before.
First,embroidery design|discount clark shoes|free embroi, the untrained bees sat in a cage and watched for 10 minutes as the trained bees visited one of the two colored flowers. To remove the scent of bees, the scientists then took these flowers away and replaced them with a different set of orange and green ######## flowers. And, to prevent the bees from memorizing locations, the scientists arranged the new flowers in a different pattern.
Next, the researchers let loose one test bee at a time. Some test bees had watched the demonstrators. Others had not. Both were equally likely to visit orange flowers. This makes sense because bumblebees often visit orange flowers in the wild.
Test bees were 50 percent more likely to visit green flowers,yankee new era, however, if they had watched other bees do it first.
Brad Worden
In a similar experiment, the researchers made ######## bees and put them on green flowers, while untrained bees watched. The observer bees were twice as likely to visit green flowers after watching the display than they were before watching it. Green flowers are unusual in nature,free hand embroidery, so bees probably won't visit them without seeing an example first.
Together, the studies have persuaded researchers that bees can learn new behaviors by watching each other. This kind of social learning is common in people and other vertebrates, but these experiments were the first tests on bees.
Bumblebees, it turns out, notice a lot more than you might think.—




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