Researchers at the University of Western Ontario in Canada have proven that bumblebees can sense the length of time passing. A study in which bumblebees were trained to expect food rewards after intervals of a few seconds was published this month in the journal Current Biology by Michael Boisvert and David Sherry.
In the wild, bumblebees are known to visit renewing nectar sources repeatedly to feed, so the scientists suspected they had some mechanism for sensing time durations. They trained groups of the bees to expect food (an artificial nectar solution) 6, 12 or 36 seconds after a light was turned off in their enclosure. The bees were tested individually and responded after an appropriate interval by extending their mouthparts into the nectar tube to drink. By varying the intervals –for example alternating randomly between 6 second delays and 36 second delays during training- the scientists showed that the bees could learn to time for 2 different durations simultaneously- typically they would respond either by attempting to feed between the 2 correct time intervals or in 2 flurries of activity, making attempts to feed around the correct time for the shorter duration and then again around the correct time for the longer duration.
Michael Boisvert and David Sherry's bumblebee study was published in Volume 16 (No16) of the journal Current Biology.
