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].

Mother hen and chicks. Image: Compassion/Gordon Ratcliffe

Baby chicks of only 3 or 4 days old can add and subtract. A  news article today reports that researchers tested youngsters to see if they could work out different quantities of small plastic balls.

In natural conditions, chicks and hens would live in small groups. It seems likely that their amazing ability to count at such a young age is important to help them survive.

Other research has found that some non-human primates, monkeys and dogs can count too and that “monkeys perform approximate mental addition in a manner that is remarkably similar to the performance of the college students”!