The Mind of a Bee

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First off - there were very few photos of insects in this book. Insects are cool, but seeing them up close (esp. with extreme magnification of compound eyes) gives me the heebies. In his latest book, The Mind of a Bee, published on 19 July, he argues that bees need our protection, not just because they are useful for crop pollination and biodiversity, but because they may be sentient beings – and humans have an ethical obligation to ensure their survival. He thinks bees have emotions, can plan and imagine things, and can recognise themselves as unique entities distinct from other bees. He draws these conclusions from experiments in his lab with female worker bees. “Whenever a bee gets something right, she gets a sugar reward. That’s how we train them, for example, to recognise human faces.” In this experiment, bees shown several monochrome images of human faces learn that one is associated with a sugar reward. “Then, we give them a choice of different faces and no rewards, and ask: which do you choose now? And indeed, they can find the correct one out of an array of different faces.” Bees may visit upwards towards 1000 flowers and each flower has it's unique mechanics in respect to the location of nectar and the perils that may befall one who is not knowledgeable.

The Mind of a Bee - Lars Chittka - Google Books

In every chapter, Chittka weaves together older and recent investigations. Thus, he charts the history of all the important discoveries made around bee intelligence that are the foundation to present day research and new knowledge. He shares details too about the lives of scientists, such as Karl von Frisch, who made discoveries about honey bee colour learning and dance-language communication at a difficult time in Nazi Germany. Although the book is mostly about the work that Chittka and his team have carried out, it is clear that they have relied heavily on the findings of other scientists to help them place the pieces of the complex jigsaw of bee cognition in the correct places. Chittka’s scientific work has been carried out mainly with bumble bees living in laboratory settings, but he has also conducted research with honey bees in the field. Lars Chittka’s The Mind of a Bee is a mind-blowing presentation of scientific evidence and insight showing beyond ...i liked this author because of his appreciation for other entomologists + he seemed like he really understood the need for relationships between scientists. good on him. The Mind of a Bee" is an absolutely incredible book about (you guessed it) the minds of bees! A very deep delve into the sensory world of bees, you start to understand what is important to them and how they perceive the world. Sometimes this book had some sciency references that were a little hard for a lay person like me to follow, but overall this book was very easy to understand and was written very well. I also learned some amazing things, and I'll try to be less afraid of bees. Bee behaviour is undoubtedly fascinating and Chittka is the ideal author to explain the intricacies of how bees learn and make decisions."—John Badmin, British Journal of Entomology and Natural History

The Mind of a Bee, Chittka | Northern Bee Books The Mind of a Bee, Chittka | Northern Bee Books

Save Quieting the Mind | Online event to your collection. Share Quieting the Mind | Online event with your friends. Dit opzienbarende experiment is maar een van de vele die Chittka beschrijft in Het bewustzijn van de bij, zijn boek op basis van dertig jaar onderzoek. Dat bijen en hommels een zonnekompas hebben en aardmagnetisme voelen wisten we al. Het zijn zaken die hen helpen om van meer dan twee kilometer ver feilloos hun weg terug naar huis te vinden. Maar dat ze weten welke bloem net bezocht is door een andere bij, waardoor ze geen nectar meer bevat, was toch een verrassing. Blijkbaar zijn bloemen elektrisch negatief geladen en bijen positief. Wanneer een bij die bloem bezoekt wordt ze iets positiever, wat de volgende bij meteen voelt. Written with moments of levity and soaked in curiosity, The Mind of a Bee is a delight."—Eliza Middleton, The ConversationBut when Chittka deliberately trained a “demonstrator bee” to carry out a task in a sub-optimal way, the “observer bee” would not simply ape the demonstrator and copy the action she had seen, but would spontaneously improve her technique to solve the task more efficiently “without any kind of trial and error”. Bees also have their own dance language which they use to represent distance, direction, and duration, to tell hive members where to go to find flower patches.