No, these aren’t robotic insects, just real bumble bees that were recorded playing with and manipulating wooden balls. This new study placed 45 bumble bees in a flight arena where they were given the option of either walking through a clear path to reach their reward or into a colored chamber with the wooden balls.
As you may have guessed, many of them chose the path into the colored chamber with the wooden balls and they rolled anywhere between 1-117 times. A second experiment was conducted where a group of 42 bees had to choose between two colored chambers, with only one containing the wooden balls. This group chose the colored chamber that resembled the previous one, even if it did not contain any objects.
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They may actually experience some kind of positive emotional states, even if rudimentary, like other larger fluffy, or not so fluffy, animals do. This sort of finding has implications to our understanding of sentience and welfare of insects and will, hopefully, encourage us to respect and protect life on Earth ever more,” said Professor Lars Chittka, Professor of Sensory and Behavioral Ecology at Queen Mary University of London.
