Despite their tiny brains, bumblebees are smart enough to pick out the most attractive flowers by watching other bees and learning from their behaviour, a new study has found.
By using simple logic, bumblebees see which coloured flowers are the most popular and conclude that those of the same colour must also contain lots of energy-rich nectar.
"Learning where to find nectar by watching others seems fantastically complex for a tiny bee, but it's something that almost any animal could do, in the right circumstances," said Dr Elli Leadbeater at Queen Mary, University of London and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).
Most worker bees visit thousands of flowers every day in their search for nectar to feed their queen's brood. Copying flower colour choices may be a shortcut to success, bypassing the exhausting process of exploring each flower to see if it contains hidden rewards.
Tests were carried out in wooden laboratory "flight arenas" stocked with artificial flowers. Bees were trained to know that sugar could be found on flowers where other foragers were present, according to the study published in the Current Biology journal.
The bees then watched through a screen as their companions chose a particular flower colour and ignored another.
When later allowed to choose a flower colour alone, the test revealed bees copied their companions' choices. "Naive foragers," who had never learnt to equate other bees with nectar, did not copy other bees' behaviour.
"Our study shows how bees use past associations to make decisions about when to copy others, but almost all other animals, including humans, are also capable of forming associations," Erika Dawson, researcher at Queen Mary, University of London added.
"We suggest that bees are using similar logic to a person who might get a headache and the next day, feel very ill. A week later, the headache is back, accompanied by a nasty rash.
"Even though they do not feel ill this time, when the rash appears again the following week, they start to dread feeling ill again, and think about taking the next day off work," said Dawson.
