Insects at Play

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Recreational Acumen of Bumble Bees: A Study Unveils Their Cognitive Abilities

From the vibrant, ever-buzzing world of insects emerges an intriguing revelation about bumble bees. It turns out these small, industrious creatures engage in something that appears very much like play. A study conducted last year showed that lab-kept bumble bees show a proclivity towards rolling small wooden balls around, seemingly for the sake of fun. This unexpected behavior, serving no apparent practical purpose, sheds light on the surprising recreational activities of these insects.

But will they get their own cable channel?

 

[PitPat]

Maybe Bee Network, an offshoot of Discovery. They are weird creatures and sort of fascinating. If they can bake honey cakes in a competitive environment, even better.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Needed a video. Don't know if you'll see an ad first. If so you can skip it after ~15 seconds.

The first minute is an intro, next 2 minutes are bees playing plus the experiments that were done (ends @ 3:05). The rest is other stuff like corvids playing.



There are other bee playing videos out there.

 

[PitPat]

I'm sure there are. But they're not doing it for fun, they're hardwired to serve their queen.

As you should.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Needed a video. Don't know if you'll see an ad first. If so you can skip it after ~15 seconds.

The first minute is an intro, next 2 minutes are bees playing plus the experiments that were done (ends @ 3:05). The rest is other stuff like corvids playing.



There are other bee playing videos out there.

Thanks. Added to my PLAY list.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'm sure there are. But they're not doing it for fun, they're hardwired to serve their queen.

As you should.

IOW that's what you learned at some point in your life. It couldn't possibly ever be updated with new data.


BTW, there are these solitary bees that live in the ground in my backyard. They don't live in a hive. I don't know much about them but maybe it's time I investigated.

 

[novaphile]

IOW that's what you learned at some point in your life. It couldn't possibly ever be updated with new data.


BTW, there are these solitary bees that live in the ground in my backyard. They don't live in a hive. I don't know much about them but maybe it's time I investigated.

I have a solitary species of bee that makes regular visits to the native plants in my garden.

I'm considering making a 'bee hotel' for them.

 

[PitPat]

"Bee Hotel" has horror movie title written all over it. In honey, of course. They're pretty good spellers.

 

[Mike!]

I'd find this more bee-lievable if someone could provide a video of a bumblebee with a tiny lathe making the wooden balls first.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I'd find this more bee-lievable if someone could provide a video of a bumblebee with a tiny lathe making the wooden balls first.

I think their cousins the dung beetles do that.

 

[sphenisc]

They haven't spent 5,000 years domesticating humans, to faff around buffing up their own balls.

 

[dann]

Recreational Acumen of Bumble Bees: A Study Unveils Their Cognitive Abilities

From the vibrant, ever-buzzing world of insects emerges an intriguing revelation about bumble bees. It turns out these small, industrious creatures engage in something that appears very much like play. A study conducted last year showed that lab-kept bumble bees show a proclivity towards rolling small wooden balls around, seemingly for the sake of fun. This unexpected behavior, serving no apparent practical purpose, sheds light on the surprising recreational activities of these insects.

But will they get their own cable channel?

Old news and not really "very much like play."

Bumblebees can be trained to score goals using a mini-ball, revealing unprecedented learning abilities, according to scientists at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL).
(...)
The experiment required the bees to move a ball to a specified location to obtain a reward of food. The insects were first trained to know the correct location of the ball on a platform. Subsequently, to obtain their reward, the bees had to move a displaced ball to the specified location.
Ball-rolling bees reveal complex learning (Phys.org, Feb 23, 2017)

For some reason, Gord_in_Toronto's medriva article talks about a "study conducted last year" and then adds a bit of creative reporting when it claims that the bees "even engage in recreational activities akin to play," even though it doesn't seem to be any more recreational or akin to play than what Skinner made pigeons do in his operant conditioning chamber.


ETA: I found this article from last year in Science where the argument for play as a recreational activity is a bit stronger. However:

But Sergio Pellis, who studies animal behavior at the University of Lethbridge, isn’t fully sold. Even though the experimenters gave the bees a clear path to a reward, he wonders whether the balls still might be triggering the housekeeping behavior that the bees use to remove dead bees and other debris from their nests. To make a stronger case that bees can experience pleasure, he says, it would help to have more examples of play.
Are these bumble bees playing with toys? (Science, Oct 27, 2022)

I wonder if the researchers were misled by their own bias and the names they had given the compartments of their 'bee apartment':

Galpayage set up what was essentially a single-story apartment for the bees. At one end was the nest, which had a single entryway to a recreation center. The far end of the rec room connected to a cafeteria with an all-you-can-eat supply of pollen and sugar water.
The recreation center was where the experiment took place. This room had two play areas on either side, each with wooden balls that were slightly bigger than a bee. The balls couldn’t roll onto the path, so the bees had to literally go out of their way to play with them.
(...)
The researchers hope their findings might also motivate greater empathy for—and protection of—wild insects.

It reminds me of the discussion in the thread about birds that allegedly spread fires where any argument against the idea was seen as an insult to bird intelligence and to Aboriginal mythology.

 

[PitPat]

Old news and not really "very much like play."



For some reason, Gord_in_Toronto's medriva article talks about a "study conducted last year" and then adds a bit of creative reporting when it claims that the bees "even engage in recreational activities akin to play," even though it doesn't seem to be any more recreational or akin to play than what

Nothing useful to add, but I remember the first day of a class I had where the professor told a story. "I got so drunk on Seagram's and 7-Up in and felt horrible the morning, that I'd swore I'd never drink 7-Up again." Or something like that.

And then there's that story about Skinner and Jung watch thing.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Old news and not really "very much like play."



For some reason, Gord_in_Toronto's medriva article talks about a "study conducted last year" and then adds a bit of creative reporting when it claims that the bees "even engage in recreational activities akin to play," even though it doesn't seem to be any more recreational or akin to play than what Skinner made pigeons do in his operant conditioning chamber.


ETA: I found this article from last year in Science where the argument for play as a recreational activity is a bit stronger. However:



I wonder if the researchers were misled by their own bias and the names they had given the compartments of their 'bee apartment':



It reminds me of the discussion in the thread about birds that allegedly spread fires where any argument against the idea was seen as an insult to bird intelligence and to Aboriginal mythology.

So you don't think they will get their own cable channel then?

 

[bruto]

IOW that's what you learned at some point in your life. It couldn't possibly ever be updated with new data.


BTW, there are these solitary bees that live in the ground in my backyard. They don't live in a hive. I don't know much about them but maybe it's time I investigated.

There are many kinds of bees and wasps and other such critters that like to nest in little holes. If you live in the country, it's a bit of a bother since they will nest in things like the nozzles of acetylene torches, and vent holes for machinery. Go to work on some outdoor equipment and find that all the allen head screws have mud in them, that kind of thing. I recently saw some web pages with instructions on how to make bee houses, with recommended drill sizes and hole depths. I did a couple (live in the boonies, lots of land), and after a season at least some of the holes appear to have been used. Some are bees, and some, I hope, are parasitic wasps, which gobble up pests including various tree-eating caterpillars.

I am a little dubious about whether bumblebees really play, but I kind of hope they do. They're one of the little bits of the world that make it nicer. I have a Siberian maple tree in the front yard, and in spring when it blooms, I hear the thousands of bees working the flowers. A little later they go over to the lilacs.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Sometimes you have to read below the fold.

Above the fold:
Are these bumble bees playing with toys?

Lars Chittka, a behavioral ecologist at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and author of the recent book The Mind of a Bee, and colleagues stumbled upon the new evidence by accident. The team was studying how bumble bees (Bombus terrestris) learn complex behaviors from their comrades by training the insects to move wooden balls to specific locations. (If a bee moved a ball to the right place, it got a sugary treat.) The researchers noticed that some bees moved the balls even when no reward was offered. “They just seem to like going back to them and fiddling with them and rolling all over the place,” Chittka says.

Below the fold:

Gordon Burghardt, an expert in animal behavior at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, says the careful design of the experiments has convinced him the bees are indeed engaging in play. “I think this is a great paper.”

Read the article to see how they set up the experiment and how they confirmed the result.

There was still criticism, and that's as it should be:

Even though the experimenters gave the bees a clear path to a reward, he wonders whether the balls still might be triggering the housekeeping behavior that the bees use to remove dead bees and other debris from their nests. To make a stronger case that bees can experience pleasure, he says, it would help to have more examples of play.

Even if the bees are indeed playing, it’s unclear whether they would do so in the wild. It’s possible that bees in the lab have more opportunities for play because they are protected from predators and don’t need to gather food, Chittka says. “Competition in the wild is tough and might not provide bees with the luxury to set aside time to manipulate objects just for fun.”

And this fit with what we know about young animals:

The experiment also revealed that young bees were more likely to roll a ball than were older bees. This reflects how play changes with age in birds and mammals; young animals are more likely to play.

I am not so wary of anthropomorphizing as many researchers are. One can take denying human emotions too far. We evolved, human feelings didn't appear out of nowhere with some single nucleotide substitution. Doesn't mean I ignore examining for false conclusions.

 

[gabeygoat]

IOW that's what you learned at some point in your life. It couldn't possibly ever be updated with new data.


BTW, there are these solitary bees that live in the ground in my backyard. They don't live in a hive. I don't know much about them but maybe it's time I investigated.

I have those under my sequoia tree. they're fairly large, and are usually black and orange rather than black and yellow. they're good gardening buddies when I do yard work.

 

[dann]

Nothing useful to add, but I remember the first day of a class I had where the professor told a story. "I got so drunk on Seagram's and 7-Up in and felt horrible the morning, that I'd swore I'd never drink 7-Up again." Or something like that.

And then there's that story about Skinner and Jung watch thing.

Back in my student days, I used to get drunk on rum and coke. It's not that I didn't know what gave me the headache the next morning, but I would get nauseous at the sight of a bottle of Coca-Cola.

I am not familiar with "that story about Skinner and Jung watch thing."

 

[PitPat]

As it was told to me by a psych professor, there was a some sort of forum where they and others made their cases in sort of a debate-ish atmosphere.

As the story goes, Skinner pounded his hand down with a watch on his wrist with a audible noise when making a point, which caused Jung to react. And repeatedly did it.

Have no idea if it's true or not.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Soon we an have mixed-double matches!

Male and female dung beetles share the workload to get ahead, study finds

Peer-reviewed research published Wednesday found certain species of dung beetles — key to regulating many ecosystems by cleaning up after other animals — pair up spontaneously in male-female couples to move and bury balls of prized fecal matter more quickly.

Scientists observed male and female beetles each performing their own carefully choreographed roles to save precious time before potential rivals could snatch the dung away. Once the ball is secured, they then use it to breed.

Ain't Nature wonderful?