Bumblebees Can Tell Time: Study Shows Insects Use Flash Duration to Find Food

Bumblebees can perceive duration and use it to guide foraging, new study shows

Researchers at Queen Mary University of London report that bumblebees can judge how long a light flash lasts and use that temporal information to decide where to look for food. The work, led by doctoral student Alex Davidson and senior lecturer Elisabetta Versace, is the first clear demonstration that an insect can process the duration of a stimulus.

Maze experiment and results

The team trained individual foragers to navigate a multiroom maze. In each chamber the bees encountered two visual cues: one circle that flashed briefly (0.5 seconds) and another that flashed for a longer interval (5 seconds). Approaching one circle revealed a sweet reward the bees prefer; the other revealed a bitter stimulus they avoid. Although the circle positions changed between rooms, bees gradually learned to fly toward the short flash associated with the sweet food.

To rule out scent or visible cues, researchers later ran trials with no food present. Even without rewards, the bees continued to prefer the circle that had signalled the sweet reward, demonstrating they were using the duration of flashes — not smell or location — to guide choices.

“In this way, we show that the bee is actually processing the time difference between them to guide its foraging choice,” said Alex Davidson.

Why it matters

The finding suggests insect learning can be far more flexible than simple stimulus–response reflexes. Versace noted the flashes used in the experiment are stimuli bees almost certainly never encountered in their evolutionary history, yet the insects learned to use them to solve a task. The researchers place bumblebees in a small group of species — including humans, macaques and pigeons — known to discriminate between short and long temporal signals.

Experts not involved in the work welcomed the result. Cintia Akemi Oi of University College London said the ability is plausible given that bees must manage time while foraging. Visual ecologist Jolyon Troscianko at the University of Exeter highlighted that such learning demonstrates how compact nervous systems can support sophisticated behaviour.

Next steps

The team plans to investigate the neural mechanisms that allow bees to judge duration and to repeat experiments with bees moving freely in colonies rather than as isolated individuals. They also want to understand why some bees learn the task faster than others.

Davidson and Versace hope the study will shift public perception of insects from simple, instinct-driven organisms to animals capable of flexible cognition and individual variation.

Publication: The study was published in the journal Biology Letters.