How bees count

When you write the numbers 1 to 5 in a line, chances are you automatically put 1 on the left, and 5 on the right. This preference is shared by most humans, some birds – and with bees.

Honeybees are efficient learners and might be tiny mathematicians. Two recent studies on bees have revealed a lot about how they process numbers, and this could help shape future work in biotechnology.

Dr Scarlett Howard is an animal cognition expert at the School of Biologicial Sciences, Monash University. She joined us on the Thursday Daily this morning to chat about the buzzing world of bee maths.

Want to read more?

Article in The Conversation: Bees count from left to right, just like some humans, apes and birds – new research.

The two research reports:
In the PNAS – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (US): An insect brain organizes numbers on a left-to-right mental number line
In the Journal of Animal Behaviour: Spatial preferences influence associations between magnitude and space in honey bees