how scientists trained bumblebees to reach a sugar stash

We have more in common with bumblebees than we could imagine. Like us, a bumblebee is capable of learning and transmitting complex knowledge: British researchers have just demonstrated this. “The brain of a bumblebee is the size of a pinhead or a poppy seed, it was long thought that they were incapable of learning anything”explains Alice Bridges, researcher at the University of Sheffield (United Kingdom).

Some insects have been trained by laboratory researchers to overcome obstacles to reach a small store of sugar. Better: a third of them were able to transmit information to other bumblebees. “This shows that insects have enough brains to solve a problem”, explained Mathieu Lihoreau, ethologist and research director at the CNRS. According to scientists, this transmission capacity could be found in the domestic bee, the ant or the termite.