Here at The Bee Corp, we try to see eye-to-eye with everyone we work with. More often than not, that's easier said than done. Especially when it comes to our bees.
SEEING WHAT'S NOT THERE
Human eyes transform 2D images into a 3D images much like the way an artist would paint a scene. When you look at Leonardo da Vinci’s infamous Mona Lisa, you can tell Mona is up close relative to the background. But the painting is in 2 dimensions on a single piece of flat canvas, how can that be? As it turns out, our brain infers depth and distance by literally tricking itself into seeing depth, which is why optical illusions work so well.
However, what’s more interesting is that bees are capable of being tricked by the very same things we can get tricked by. Recently, scientists found that a bee’s vision functions much like a human’s, and they are able to infer depth based on their brains tricking them as well. However, our fuzzy little friends have one small advantage over humans: their vision works in the ultraviolet spectrum.
SHOW ME THE HONEY
What does it mean to view ultraviolet light? This image gives an idea of how bees see a yellow flower.
A. Shows how humans see a yellow flower
B. Same flower through UV light
C. Captured through an array of straws to simulate insect compound vision D. Shows a merge of the pictures processed on the computer and gives an idea of how a bee might see a flower.
Putting an ultraviolet light to a flower reveals certain parts that you normally wouldn’t see. For example, certain flowers are white in visible light, but become dark under ultraviolet. This same mechanism helps attract bees to certain flowers, by having a blue/Ultra-violet halo around the center of the flower, usually where the pistil and stamen are located for pollination. These concepts allow bees to maximize honey production by prioritizing which flowers to visit.
SEEING THE FUTURE?
For humans to gain a better understanding of issues facing bees, perhaps we should view their issues in a different light. Research into flowers under ultraviolet light taught us many things, like which flowers to plant in pollinator gardens to attract bees.
But what about the other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum? Learning more about bees through other light wavelengths like infrared light, X-ray and radio waves could yield valuable findings about how these complex creatures interact with the world around them.