Football for bees, a game of two hives

SCIENTISTS have created a real buzz – by teaching bees to play football.

Although the bee team is unlikely to trouble the Premier League, the researchers have discovered that insects can learn complex skills and improve upon them.

The bumblebees were encouraged to push a yellow ball to the middle of a ‘pitch’ by rewarding them with sugar released from the ball. Crucially, scientists showed for the first time that the bees could learn by watching and, rather than copy what they saw, change it to make it better – a skill only seen before in humans, primates and marine mammals such as dolphins.

The study at Queen Mary University of London found the insects, given a selection of balls, cleverly went for the closest even after watching demonstrator bees that always chose the furthest. Project supervisor Professor Lars Chittk said: ‘Our study puts the final nail in the coffin of the idea that small brains constrain insects to have limited behavioural flexibility and only simple learning abilities.’

Some bees observed a previously trained bee – or a plastic bee on a stick – move the furthest ball to the centre to gain a reward. Others received a ‘ghost’ demonstration, using a magnet to move the ball, while a third group received no demonstration but found the ball already at the centre of the platform with a reward.

The bees that observed the technique from a live or a plastic insect were more efficient, showing that they can be trained to perform behaviour not linked to their natural foraging habits.