Secrets of Math From the Bee Whisperer

Secrets of Math From the Bee Whisperer

Anne Moffat

“You can see their decision-making process in their movements and flight patterns,” Howard said. While deciding which of two answers is correct, they often fly toward one of the solutions before seeming to think better of it and flying off toward the other.

Howard teaches one bee at a time, placing it next to an apparatus known as a Y maze, a covered box shaped like a block letter Y. The bee enters the bottom leg of the Y and sees a mathematical question, expressed in shapes and colors. In the arithmetic lessons, blue shapes mean “add 1” to the given number of shapes, and yellow shapes mean “subtract 1.” To answer the question, the bee chooses from one of two possible solutions posted at the entrances to the Y’s upper arms. The bee will find a reward — sugar water — in the arm associated with the correct answer, and a punishment — tonic water, which bees find bitter — in the arm with the incorrect answer.

To teach bees about zero, she first trained them to understand the concept of “less than.” As with the addition and subtraction problems, she offered reinforcements for correct choices. Once an individual bee demonstrated it understood “less than,” she advanced that bee to the testing phase of her experiment, where it would decide if any number of shapes is less than zero shapes — a number the bee had never encountered before. Each bee had only one chance to answer. The bees often identified “zero shapes” as smaller than any number of shapes, and Howard concluded that they must possess an innate understanding that zero is smaller than any positive integer.

Following the sad death of Terry Jones, I hope I can be forgiven for posting this here: