Culture club

Bumblebees can learn from each other, creating culture within colonies

- Stuart Blackman

RECENT EXPERIMENTS SHOW THAT bumblebees join a select group of animals - mostly primates and birds - capable of passing on new behaviours by cultural transmission.

The study tested buff-tailed bumblebees' ability to learn to open sugar-filled containers, a challenge that had two equally effective possible solutions. Inexperienced bees learned the task faster if they'd watched an experienced individual complete it first. And the solution eventually adopted by the colony was the one demonstrated initially.