A new study by scientists at Royal Holloway, University of London, has found that bees can solve complex mathematical problems which can take a computer many days to work out.
Once a bee has discovered flowers, they will often revisit them. However they do not return to them in a random order, or even the order in which they were found but they can actually work out the shortest route to visit every flower. The bees have effectively solved the “travelling salesman problem” which involves finding the shortest route that allows a travelling salesman to call at all the locations they have to visit. A computer will work this out by comparing the length of all the possible routes between the different locations and calculating which is shortest.
Dr Nigel Raine, from Royal Holloway’s school of biological sciences, said: “Foraging bees solve travelling salesman problems every day. They visit flowers at multiple locations and, because bees use lots of energy to fly, they find a route which keeps flying to a minimum.”
Scientists discovered this remarkable talent by using computer controlled artificial flowers to test bee behaviour. After investigating the flowers, the bees quickly determined the shortest route to fly between them to save them time and energy. “Despite their tiny brains bees are capable of extraordinary feats of behaviour,” said Raine.
Source:
Guardian.co.uk. Bees’ tiny brains beat computers, study finds. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/24/bees-route-finding-problems. Sunday 24 October 2010 [Accessed 2 November 2010].
