First-Ever Study Shows Bumble Bees 'Play' (phys.org) 32
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: Bumble bees play, according to new research led by Queen Mary University of London published in Animal Behavior. It is the first time that object play behavior has been shown in an insect, adding to mounting evidence that bees may experience positive "feelings." The team of researchers set up numerous experiments to test their hypothesis, which showed that bumble bees went out of their way to roll wooden balls repeatedly despite there being no apparent incentive for doing so. The study also found that younger bees rolled more balls than older bees, mirroring human behavior of young children and other juvenile mammals and birds being the most playful, and that male bees rolled them for longer than their female counterparts.
The study followed 45 bumble bees in an arena and gave them the options of walking through an unobstructed path to reach a feeding area or deviating from this path into the areas with wooden balls. Individual bees rolled balls between 1 and, impressively, 117 times over the experiment. The repeated behavior suggested that ball-rolling was rewarding. This was supported by a further experiment where another 42 bees were given access to two colored chambers, one always containing movable balls and one without any objects. When tested and given a choice between the two chambers, neither containing balls, bees showed a preference for the color of the chamber previously associated with the wooden balls. The set-up of the experiments removed any notion that the bees were moving the balls for any greater purpose other than play. Rolling balls did not contribute to survival strategies, such as gaining food, clearing clutter, or mating and was done under stress-free conditions. [...] The new research showed the bees rolling balls repeatedly without being trained and without receiving any food for doing so -- it was voluntary and spontaneous -- therefore akin to play behavior as seen in other animals. Study first-author, Samadi Galpayage, Ph.D. student at Queen Mary University of London says that "it is certainly mind-blowing, at times amusing, to watch bumble bees show something like play. They approach and manipulate these 'toys' again and again. It goes to show, once more, that despite their little size and tiny brains, they are more than small robotic beings."
"They may actually experience some kind of positive emotional states, even if rudimentary, like other larger fluffy, or not so fluffy, animals do. This sort of finding has implications to our understanding of sentience and welfare of insects and will, hopefully, encourage us to respect and protect life on Earth ever more."
The study followed 45 bumble bees in an arena and gave them the options of walking through an unobstructed path to reach a feeding area or deviating from this path into the areas with wooden balls. Individual bees rolled balls between 1 and, impressively, 117 times over the experiment. The repeated behavior suggested that ball-rolling was rewarding. This was supported by a further experiment where another 42 bees were given access to two colored chambers, one always containing movable balls and one without any objects. When tested and given a choice between the two chambers, neither containing balls, bees showed a preference for the color of the chamber previously associated with the wooden balls. The set-up of the experiments removed any notion that the bees were moving the balls for any greater purpose other than play. Rolling balls did not contribute to survival strategies, such as gaining food, clearing clutter, or mating and was done under stress-free conditions. [...] The new research showed the bees rolling balls repeatedly without being trained and without receiving any food for doing so -- it was voluntary and spontaneous -- therefore akin to play behavior as seen in other animals. Study first-author, Samadi Galpayage, Ph.D. student at Queen Mary University of London says that "it is certainly mind-blowing, at times amusing, to watch bumble bees show something like play. They approach and manipulate these 'toys' again and again. It goes to show, once more, that despite their little size and tiny brains, they are more than small robotic beings."
"They may actually experience some kind of positive emotional states, even if rudimentary, like other larger fluffy, or not so fluffy, animals do. This sort of finding has implications to our understanding of sentience and welfare of insects and will, hopefully, encourage us to respect and protect life on Earth ever more."
Wonderful (Score:4, Interesting)
It makes me happy to know little creatures do things just for fun.
At first I thought it could be due to curiosity rather than play, but after watching the video, there was way more rolling around than could reasonably be accounted for by curiosity.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The video reminded me of rabbits trying to fuck balloons.
Ball-rolling may not be "rewarding" or enjoyable to bees at all, they may be interpreting the ball as something other than toys and their little bee brains may be in fact confused or frustrated that the balls aren't doing what they are "supposed" to be doing. Consider a neural net trained to play and win Ms. Pacman or Super Mario World - if you changed the game with a totally new obstacle sufficiently confounding that causes little neural-net Mario to
Re: (Score:2)
> The video reminded me of rabbits trying to fuck balloons.
Seems reasonable to consider that's playing too ?
> little bee brains may be in fact confused or frustrated that the balls aren't doing what they are "supposed" to be doing
But then why would they seek it out, or impressions associated with it, if it was frustrating.
> I think more experiments are needed to rule out confounding factors and determine if the bee is really enjoying itself.
Any suggestions on how you'd do that ?
Re: (Score:2)
little bee brains may be in fact confused or frustrated that the balls aren't doing what they are "supposed" to be doing
But then why would they seek it out, or impressions associated with it, if it was frustrating.
Even humans are not enlightened creatures that avoid frustration. Facebook and Twitter seem to have found that frustration increases engagement. (I abandoned Facebook partly for this reason, but I still seem to seek out frustration at times.) Should we assume bees are more enlightened because they are simpler? Maybe their drive for accomplishment is stronger than their drive for happiness (or whatever they feel as equivalents), so they strive even when frustrated.
Yet they could still be playing. More study
Re: (Score:2)
i concur, this might simply be that the balls trigger a behavior that does make sense in another context. like, dunno, rolling pupas in a hive or such. this could also explain younger bees rolling for longer, maybe the more mature bees realize sooner that the stimulus is not what it seems. correlation is not causation etc.
more evidence would be needed with different activities but ... thinking of it, if bees exhibit playful behavior we should be able to observe this amply in their natural habitat. it doesn'
Re: (Score:2)
i concur, this might simply be that the balls trigger a behavior that does make sense in another context. like, dunno, rolling pupas in a hive or such.
It could be the "grab and hold on" response that bees do when the hive has predator intruders. The rolling may be a side effect.
Why wood? (Score:5, Funny)
They may not be ball rollers, but just ball sniffers. Ok this might not be going where I intended.
Re: (Score:3)
Don't project.
Re: (Score:1)
Did they also try plastic and metal? Wood has scent, which I hope they somehow ruled out
I had the same thought and I think you may be onto something. As much as my bias wants me to believe that insects play, there might be something about the color or material of the balls that inspires this behaviour. Perhaps they associate the balls with some kind of pollinator plant and are rolling them in search of pollen. Or some other instinctual behavior is triggered by these balls.
Re: (Score:3)
Possibly. But that also means they could be playing 'search the pollen'.
Re: (Score:2)
bee casino (Score:2)
So bees have never before been observed exhibiting this behaviour? They "discovered" play, joy, etc when introduced to coloured balls?
Maybe they "invented" a lottery draw using coloured balls. Did anyone think of that? Life's a gamble.
Catch it ... (Score:2)
They bee ballers - yo.
[ Wait, I think I'm using that entire sentence wrong... :-) ]
I dunno (Score:2)
It's cute, but I have to wonder if the bee is just trying (and failing) to climb on top of the ball for some reason. Maybe the bee thinks it's the ovary of a flower or something like that.
Bumblebees are pretty great, though. I always love it when they're hanging around with me in the garden, they're very non-aggressive and it always seems very serene.
I don't know dude (Score:2)
Well, I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt .. but subjectively inferring something like "play" is extremely difficult. For something to be "play", the organism has to be getting some sort of enjoyment from the activity while being consciously aware that it offers no direct benefit such as locating food. I believe the 5 criteria they used for inferring "play" are insufficient. First off, we can't even determine if anything, other than ourself, is even sentient. The only reason I can surmise humans
Re: I don't know dude (Score:1)
Maybe human behavior is just programming, too. We know very little about the workings of a brain, outside of hormones, EEG, various scans and other crude methods we are basically blind to its workings. We don't know what consciousness and sentience really are. What you're saying is just philosophy, not science. Many mammals certainly play - they are similar enough to us so that our crude methods allow us to reach that conclusion, scientifically. But even without science, anyone with half a brain can see tha
Busy Bees (Score:4, Funny)
There is no doubt that kids and bumble bees are alike. They're both busy bees. Always up in your pollen.
--
The happiness of the bee and the dolphin is to exist. For man it is to know that and to wonder at it. - Jacques Yves Cousteau
177 Times? (Score:2)
Did the watch Bee Pele or something?
Males vs. females (Score:2)
mirroring human behavior of young children and other juvenile mammals and birds being the most playful ... male bees rolled them for longer than their female counterpart
Not sure what aspect of human behavior they're suggesting here as the mirror for male bees rolling them longer than females. Are males more juvenile than females? Oh...nevermind.
Tickles but doesn't surprise me (Score:2)
When I see playfulness, somewhere in the back of my mind is always the thought that play is also training. I think we and other animals are wired to experience it as rewarding because effectively it's a training / testing / proving ground for physical, mental, and social skills and strategies. So it makes sense to me that it might occur in insects as well.
Now I'm wondering if there's any 'behaviour' among plants that might be construed as playful. Any botanists or horticulturists out there who interpret som
Flies (Score:2)
I am quite certain flies have feelings. I still don't want them in my house.
Re: (Score:2)
As an ant, I have feelings. I want to be in your house. :P
Why ever would you think this makes sense? (Score:2)
Why does biology insist as a starting point that any creature other than humans cannot possibly have 'feelings'? Despite repeated evidence to the contrary?
Why does biology seem to think that any creature that has 'feelings' must have human 'feelings'? From which it follows that if they don't have human 'feelings' then they don't have feelings?
Why does biology think that placing a creature in an artificial environment that is a human abstraction ie makes sense to a human, that that environment would make s
Re: (Score:2)
Why does biology insist as a starting point that any creature other than humans cannot possibly have 'feelings'?
it doesn't? there's a plethora of evidence that most creatures have feelings, and many of them exhibit highly intelligent behavior. it is already well understood and proven that humans are animals that got lucky in the evolution lottery but aren't "essentially" different from the rest of animal life. whoever told you otherwise is not a biologist, probably just a religious nut or a sorry ignorant, or both.
otoh, you talk as if you assumed "biology" is an animal too. which makes your last statement ...
Biology is not a science. It is "butterfly collection"
... part
Seen it, not convinced (Score:1)
Clickbait. Someone trying to get more funding for their research again?
Re: (Score:2)
"We set up a room with a TV playing "Dragnet" reruns, and another playing Netflix's "Sandman", and the bees preferred t
Robots (Score:2)
Bumble bees are just robots. They don't fall in love, they don't write novels, and they've never heard of Kim Kardashian.
Re: (Score:2)
and they've never heard of Kim Kardashian.
Lucky bastards. Not sure this constitutes proof that they are robots, however. There are probably non-robot humans that have never heard of Kim Kardashian. Aboriginals with no modern communications technology, for example. Lucky bastards.
Seriously, I think it is more likely that the bees are acting out their built-in programming in a novel way than that they are demonstrating a propensity/capacity for "play". For one thing, where is their demonstration of "play" in their normal environment - does it o