Hive thriving

The bee felt a wave of relief as it re-entered the hive. Its foraging expedition had been particularly challenging, with flowers it was depending on emptied before it got there. Then there was a terrifying moment when it almost got caught in a spider's web. No wonder the tiny creature felt stressed out.

Not long ago, scientists would have dismissed this scenario as nonsense. Because a bee has a brain the size of a poppy seed, it was thought to be unable to experience suffering. But advances in neurobiology now paint a very different picture.

A new book called What a Bee Knows: Exploring the Thoughts, Memories and Personalities of Bees argues that the insects are capable of sophisticated emotions, including fear, optimism, playfulness and frustration. According to its author, Stephen Buchmann, bees can experience trauma, distinguish one human face from another, process memories while they are asleep and possibly dream.   

"Bees are self-aware, they're sentientAble to perceive or feel things., and they possibly have a primitive form of consciousness," he writes. "They solve problems and can think."

Another scientist, Professor Lars Chittka, has studied mood changes in bees by measuring the serotoninA chemical messenger believed to boost people's mood. and dopamineA hormone and neurotransmitter that plays several important roles in the brain and body, providing us with positive sensations, rewarding us for evolutionarily good behaviours like eating food. in their brains. He found that the levels fell when a bee was in a worrying situation, but rose when it was fed sucroseA complex sugar made up of fructose and glucose. Bees break it down into these simple building blocks., giving it more enthusiasm for foraging.  

The relationship between humans and bees is a very old one. A spear point estimated to be 40,000 years old was attached to the shaft with beeswax.¹

Ancient pictures of bees have been found on rocks in countries as far apart as Egypt and Australia. The MayaA group of indigenous peoples of Central America. people in Central America worshipped a bee god.

In many cultures and religions, bees are a symbol of wisdom and hard work. The Bible tells of a formidable Israelite judge called Deborah - a name derived from the Hebrew for "bee". Early Christian communities were often compared to beehives.

Bees are also admired for their fierceness in defending their hives, and their spirit of self-sacrifice: a bee who stings an enemy kills itself in doing so.

Their powers of organisation are formidable too. A hive can contain thousands of bees working as a team, with each having a specific role.

Worker bees collect pollen, make honey and care for the queen. Drones scout for food supplies and protect the hive. Other bees look after the larvaeInsects in the next stage of development after they have emerged from eggs. A caterpillar is a larva..

Agriculture depends heavily on pollinationThe process through which pollen is taken from one plant to another so that new seeds can be made. by bees. But they are suffering badly from human interference in the natural world, poisoned by pesticides and deprived of many of their habitats.

A particularly worrying phenomenon is colony collapse, in which the entire population of a hive dies in a single season. Stephen Buchmann believes this is partly the result of psychological stress that bees suffer because of modern farming methods.  

He hopes that recognising that bees have feelings will persuade people to treat them better. A Californian company called BeeHero is developing ways to monitor their wellbeing.

Should bees run the world? 

Yes: Bees are incredibly well-organised, hard-working and unselfish. The hives they live in are models of harmony and the world would be a far better place if parliaments operated in the same way.

No: Bees simply do what they are programmed to do. They have no individuality and cannot try new things or take the initiative, which is essential if a community is to make progress.   

Or... In a way they already do. The Western honeybee pollinates three quarters of the fruit, vegetables and nuts that we eat. Without them our whole system of producing food would fall apart.