US EditionScientists now know that bees can process time, a first in insects
Over 80% of trained bumblebees chose the correct Morse code light duration without rewards, showing insects can process temporal cues to guide foraging decisions.
- Researchers at Queen Mary University of London found Bombus terrestris can decide where to forage by recognising visual signal duration, as shown in a Biology Letters paper published November 11, 2025.
- In recent years, researchers documented deeper bee cognition, motivating Alex Davidson, PhD student, Queen Mary University of London, and Dr. Elisabetta Versace to test if insects distinguish short from long light flashes.
- Using a two-choice setup, researchers trained bees in a special maze with sugar solution and quinine, reaching a success threshold of 15 correct guesses out of 20, with more than 80 percent performing reliably.
- The study marks the first insect demonstration of this timing skill, showing Bombus terrestris can distinguish dot and dash durations and enabling tests of timing models in miniature brains smaller than one cubic millimetre.
- Known timing systems such as circadian rhythms operate too slowly to explain subsecond flash discrimination, leaving neural mechanisms mostly unknown, and Alex Davidson, PhD student, said, `Since bees don't encounter flashing stimuli in their natural environment, it's remarkable that they could succeed at this task.
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25 Articles
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Bumblebees Have Learned to Read Simple Morse Code–an Ability Seen Only in Humans and Vertebrates
A new study is the first to show that an insect can differentiate between different durations of visual cues. In Morse code, a short duration flash or “dot” denotes a letter “E” and a long duration flash— or “dash”—means letter “T”. Until now, the ability to discriminate between “dot” and “dash” has been seen only […] The post Bumblebees Have Learned to Read Simple Morse Code–an Ability Seen Only in Humans and Vertebrates appeared first on Good …
A study published on Wednesday 12 November in Biology Letters showed that bees can distinguish between light flashes of different duration, a capacity that has so far only been observed in humans, monkeys and pigeons.The research was carried out by scientists at Queen Mary University in London, UK, who worked with specimens of the species Bombus terrestris, known as light yellow-tailed bumblebee.The research team designed a special maze to train…
Scientists shocked as bumblebees learn to read simple “Morse code”
In a first-of-its-kind study, scientists found that bumblebees can tell the difference between short and long light flashes, much like recognizing Morse code. The insects learned which signal led to a sweet reward, demonstrating an unexpected sense of timing. This ability may stem from a fundamental neural process, suggesting that even tiny brains have complex time-tracking mechanisms relevant to evolution and AI.
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