Bees Co-Existing / Interacting With Humans

[ramonmercado]

Bees can recognize human faces, study finds



Honeybees may look pretty much all alike to us. But it seems we may not look all alike to them. A study has found that they can learn to recognize human faces in photos, and remember them for at least two days.

Image above: A honeybee inspects a photograph of a face in preparation for a landing. (Courtesy the Journal of Experimental Biology)

The findings toss new uncertainty into a long-studied question that some scientists considered largely settled, the researchers say: how humans themselves recognize faces.

The results also may help lead to better face-recognition software, developed through study of the insect brain, the scientists added.

Many researchers traditionally believed facial recognition required a large brain, and possibly a specialized area of that organ dedicated to processing face information. The bee finding casts doubt on that, said Adrian G. Dyer, the lead researcher in the study.

He recalls that when he made the discovery, it startled him so much that he called out to a colleague, telling her to come quickly because “no one’s going to believe it—and bring a camera!”

Dyer said that to his knowledge, the finding is the first time an invertebrate has shown ability to recognize faces of other species. But not all bees were up to the task: some flunked it, he said, although this seemed due more to a failure to grasp how the experiment worked than to poor facial recognition specifically.

In any cases, some humans also can’t recognize faces, Dyer noted; the condition is called prosopagnosia.

In the bee study, reported in the Dec. 15 issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology, Dyer and two colleagues presented honeybees with photos of human faces taken from a standard human psychology test. The photos had similar lighting, background colors and sizes and included only the face and neck to avoid having the insects make judgments based on the clothing. In some cases, the people in the pictures themselves looked similar.

The researchers, with Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, tried to train the bees to realize that a photo of one man had a drop of a sugary liquid next to it. Different photos came with a drop of bitter liquid instead.

A few bees apparently failed to realize that they should pay attention to the photos at all. But five bees learned to fly toward the photo horizontally in such a way that they could get a good look at it, Dyer reported. In fact, these bees tended to hover a few centimeters in front of the image for a while before deciding where to land.

The bees learned to distinguish the correct face from the wrong one with better than 80 percent accuracy, even when the faces were similar, and regardless of where the photos were placed, the researchers found. Also, just like humans, the bees performed worse when the faces were flipped upside-down.

“This is evidence that face recognition requires neither a specialised neuronal [brain] circuitry nor a fundamentally advanced nervous system,” the researchers wrote, noting that the test they used was one for which even humans have some difficulty.

Moreover, “Two bees tested two days after the initial training retained the information in long-term memory,” they wrote. One scored about 94 percent on the first day and 79 percent two days later; the second bee’s score dropped from about 87 to 76 percent during the same time frame.

The researchers also checked whether bees performed better for faces that humans judged as being more different. This seemed to be the case, they found, but the result didn’t reach statistical significance.

The bees probably don’t understand what a human face is, Dyer said in an email. “To the bees the faces were spatial patterns (or strange looking flowers),” he added.

Bees are famous for their pattern-recognition abilities, which scientists believe evolved in order to discriminate among flowers. As social insects, they can also tell apart their hivemates. But the new study shows that they can recognize human faces better than some humans can—with one-ten thousandth of the brain cells.

This raises the question of how bees recognize faces, and if so, whether they do it differently from the way we do it, Dyer and colleagues wrote. Studies suggest small children recognize faces by picking out specific features that are easy to recognize, whereas adults see the interrelationships among facial features. Bees seem to show aspects of both strategies depending on the study, the researchers added.

The findings cast doubt on the belief among some researchers that the human brain has a specialized area for face recognition, Dyer and colleagues said.

Neuroscientists point to an area called the fusiform gyrus, which tends to show increased activity during face-viewing, as serving this purpose. But the bee finding suggests “the human brain may not need to have a visual area specific for the recognition of faces,” Dyer and colleagues wrote.

That may be helpful to researchers who develop face-recognition technologies to be used for security at airports and other locations, Dyer noted. The United States is investing heavily in such systems, but they still make many mistakes.

Already, the way that bees navigate is being used to design “autonomous aircraft that can fly in remote areas without the need for radio contact or satellite navigation,” Dyer wrote in the email. “We show that the miniature brain can definitely recognize faces, and if in the future we can work out the mechanisms by which this is achieved,” this might suggest ideas for improved face recognition technologies.

Dyer said that if bees can learn to recognize humans in photos, then they reasonably might also be able to recognize real-life faces. On the other hand, he remarked, this probably isn’t the explanation for an adage popular in some parts of the world—that you shouldn’t kill a bee because its nestmates will remember and come after you.

Francis Ratnieks of Sheffield University in Sheffield, U.K., says that apparent bee revenge attacks of this sort actually occur because a torn-off stinger releases chemicals that signal alarm to nearby hivemates. Says Dyer, “bees don’t normally go around looking at faces.”

by Jack Lucentini - World Science (http://www.world-science.net)

http://www.physorg.com/news8953.html

 

[ProfessorF]

So, bee's know what I look like, and would recognise me if one saw me again.

Distinctly unfair IMHO.
Also, the article fails to mention precisely why bees can recognise faces.

One bee looks much alike to another to me.

Perhaps some sort of bee-numbering system should be introduced to avoid confusion?

 

[WhistlingJack]

Croatian bees sniff out landmines

By Nicholas Walton

BBC News, Zagreb

A new technique to help find unexploded landmines using honey bees is being developed at Zagreb University in Croatia.

"We started this because our citizens are exposed to serious risks with mines," explains Professor Nikola Kezic, as honey bees buzz around his head.

"Luckily we also have a long tradition of keeping bees and making honey. Our solution makes use of what we have."

Croatia, like Bosnia-Hercegovina and the other countries of the former Yugoslavia, has a big landmine problem, inherited from the wars of the 1990s.

More than 1,000 sq km (380 sq miles) of Croatian countryside are thought to be contaminated by the mines.

About 250,000 mines are still buried, and more than 100 people have been killed by them in Croatia since 1998.

Removing mines is slow and very expensive. And even after the de-miners have done their work, some may remain in the soil.

Prof Kezic's idea is to use honey bees to find any explosives that might have been missed by the de-mining teams.

Training the bees to find mines takes place in a large net tent pitched on a lawn at the university's Faculty of Agriculture.

A hive of bees sits at one end, with several feeding points for the bees set up around the tent.

But only a few of the feeding points contain food, and the soil immediately around them has been impregnated with explosive chemicals.

The idea is that the bees' keen sense of smell soon associates the smell of explosives with food. So far this has proved successful.

Prof Kezic says that training the bees takes only three or four days.

The first day or so is spent in the large net tent, getting the bees used to associating the smell of TNT with food.

After that several bees are taken out of the colony and tested to see if they react correctly when presented with extracts of explosives.

"This year our work is to increase the bees' sensitivity to the smell of TNT," says Prof Kezic. He warns that it will take time before they are sure the system is reliable enough to use properly.

Once the technique has been shown to be reliable, the idea is to use the bees on areas that have already been de-mined.

The colony of specially trained bees will be released in the de-mined area, and followed with a special heat-sensitive camera.

The bees will be expected to settle on areas of ground that smell of explosives. If they land on an area where no landmine was discovered earlier, the de-mining team will investigate to make sure they have not missed one.

If the technique proves a success it might provide a cheap and easily available resource for de-mining teams all over the Balkans.

Other animals have been used before to detect explosives.

Gambian giant pouched rats are used in several African countries, including Mozambique, to find mines. Like the bees in Croatia, they are trained to associate the smell of TNT with food.

Dogs are also used to find landmines and to sniff out hidden explosives, for instance in airports. But unlike rats and bees, the weight of sniffer dogs means that they can be at risk of setting off the mines they are trying to detect.

Dogs have also been used for offensive operations in wartime. In World War II the Soviet Red Army trained dogs to run underneath enemy tanks. The dogs had petrol bombs strapped to their backs which ignited when they knocked against the enemy vehicles.

In the Croatian countryside bee-keeping has been popular for centuries. Delicious pots of honey and other produce can be bought directly from the bee-keepers at roadside stalls all over the region.

Despite many years of working with bees, Prof Kezic has not lost his enthusiasm for them. His office, full of charts, diagrams and models of bees, is testament to his interest in these social insects.

And in his fridge there is further evidence of what makes bees so special: pots of honey and some delicious honey-flavoured raki, the local strong alcohol.

Story from BBC NEWS:

Published: 2007/05/30 06:03:35 GMT

© BBC MMVII

Scradje

 

[oldrover]

I did originally post this on the 'Bees' thread but that's in Fortean News, and news this isn't so I moved it here.

Yesterday my mother noticed a bee in her living room then another, an hour or so later she went into the kitchen to find the inside of the window, which is about 1 1/2' by 2 1/2' totally covered with them. After opening the window and ushering them out she called the Environmental Health as she was worried they might be nesting in the walls or whatever, the EH told her that it's impossible for bees to swarm about this time of year as it's too cold and that they only came out for wasps. A little later though they called back to ask her to describe the bees, which she did as small black bees with a brown fuzzy thorax, and asked her if she'd collected any which she had, as a result they're coming round on Monday to identify them.

I'm not very surprised by this to me it seems like it's just a hive on the move a bit out of season, but I'm under pressure to 'do something', so I thought I'd post here to see if anyone else has come across this sort of thing out of season like this.

 

[Jac21]

ha no experience sorry, so i cant say anything particularly practical, but there's probably a local bee-keepers association nearby im sure they'd be able to tell you the best way to go and might even offer to help you out given the state of bee populations today. If you cant find anything on tinternet, then maybe any local farm shops-they tend to stock locally sourced honey. Hope you get it sorted to your Mother's and the bees satisfaction.

 

[oldrover]

maybe any local farm shops-they tend to stock locally sourced honey. Hope you get it sorted to your Mother's and the bees satisfaction.

Thank you, and there are indeed a couple of local farm shops both of which do stock local honey.

 

[Jac21]

well good luck, i'm sure they'll be most helpful. Actually i'm a bit jealous-i've always liked the idea of keeping bees. Do let us know when you get them to behive themselves and buzz off to pastures greener :lol:

 

[rasputin]

My mum's neighbours have a bees nest on their roof under the gutter and they are still swarming around. I think the unusually mild weather is probably confusing their normal habits.

 

[ramonmercado]

An update.

Honeybees trained in Croatia to find land mines
May 19th, 2013 in Biology / Plants & Animals

In this Wednesday, May 15, 2013 photo, a scientist inspects bees during a scientific experiment at the Faculty of Agriculture at Zagreb University. Croatian researches, working on a unique method to find unexploded mines that are littering their country and the rest of the Balkans, are confident they can use bees for detecting land mines. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

In this Wednesday, May 15, 2013 photo, a scientist inspects bees during a scientific experiment at the Faculty of Agriculture at Zagreb University. Croatian researches, working on a unique method to find unexploded mines that are littering their country and the rest of the Balkans, are confident they can use bees for detecting land mines. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

(AP)—Mirjana Filipovic is still haunted by the land mine blast that killed her boyfriend and blew off her left leg while on a fishing trip nearly a decade ago. It happened in a field that was supposedly de-mined.

Now, unlikely heroes may be coming to the rescue to prevent similar tragedies: sugar-craving honeybees. Croatian researchers are training them to find unexploded mines littering their country and the rest of the Balkans.
When Croatia joins the European Union on July 1, in addition to the beauty of its aquamarine Adriatic sea, deep blue mountain lakes and lush green forests, it will also bring numerous un-cleared minefields to the bloc's territory. About 750 square kilometers (466 square miles) are still suspected to be filled with mines from the Balkan wars in the 1990s.

Nikola Kezic, an expert on the behavior of honeybees, sat quietly together with a group of young researchers on a recent day in a large net tent filled with the buzzing insects on a grass field lined with acacia trees. The professor at Zagreb University outlined the idea for the experiment: Bees have a perfect sense of smell that can quickly detect the scent of the explosives. They are being trained to identify their food with the scent of TNT.

"Our basic conclusion is that the bees can clearly detect this target, and we are very satisfied," said Kezic, who leads a part of a larger multimillion-euro program, called "Tiramisu," sponsored by the EU to detect land mines on the continent.

Several feeding points were set up on the ground around the tent, but only a few have TNT particles in them. The method of training the bees by authenticating the scent of explosives with the food they eat appears to work: bees gather mainly at the pots containing a sugar solution mixed with TNT, and not the ones that have a different smell.

Kezic said the feeding points containing the TNT traces offer "a sugar solution as a reward, so they can find the food in the middle."

"It is not a problem for a bee to learn the smell of an explosive, which it can then search," Kezic said. "You can train a bee, but training their colony of thousands becomes a problem."

Ante Ivanda, a de-miner, searches for land mines in Petrinja, central Croatia, Friday, May 17, 2013. Croatian researches, working on a unique method to find unexploded mines that are littering their country and the rest of the Balkans, are confident they can use bees for detecting land mines. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

Croatian officials estimate that since the beginning of the Balkan wars in 1991, about 2,500 people have died from land mine explosions. During the four-year war, around 90,000 land mines were placed across the entire country, mostly at random and without any plan or existing maps.

Dijana Plestina, the head of the Croatian government's de-mining bureau, said the suspected devices represent a large obstacle for the country's population and industry, including agriculture and tourism. In the nearly two decades since the end of the war, land mines have taken the lives of 316 people, including 66 de-miners, she said.

"While this exists, we are living in a kind of terror, at least for the people who are living in areas suspected to have mines," she said. "And of course, that is unacceptable. We will not be a country in peace until this problem is solved."

In 2004, Filipovic and her boyfriend were on a fishing trip that took them to a river between Croatia and Bosnia.

"As we were returning hand-in-hand, my boyfriend stepped on a mine," the 41-year-old Filipovic said. "It was an awful, deafening explosion ... thousands of shrapnel parts went flying, hundreds ending up in my body. He was found dead several meters away, while I remained in a pool of blood sitting on the ground."

She sued the Croatian government, saying the area wasn't clearly marked as a former minefield.

"At first I thought I was asleep," she recalled. "Then I heard the voice of my father. I opened my eyes, and saw nothing. I thought I lost my eyes."

Ante Ivanda, a de-miner, searches for land mines in Petrinja, central Croatia, Friday, May 17, 2013. Croatian researches, working on a unique method to find unexploded mines that are littering their country and the rest of the Balkans, are confident they can use bees for detecting land mines. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

The government admitted guilt in the case for failing to keep the minefield sign, but the court has yet to determine financial compensation.
It may be a while before the honeybees hit real minefields, Kezic said. First, they will conduct controlled tests, with real mines but which are marked.

Kezic said American researchers have in the past experimented with mine-searching bees, but TNT—the most common explosive used in the Balkan wars—wasn't part of their experiment because its smell evaporates quickly, and only small traces remain after time. Rats and dogs are also used to detect explosives worldwide, but unlike bees, they could set off blasts on the minefields because of their weight.

Even after the de-miners have done their job in an area, some land mines are missed and remain in the soil, and they are most often the cause of deadly explosions. Once the experiment with bees proves scientifically reliable, the idea is to use them in the areas that have already been de-mined, where their movement would be followed with heat-seeking cameras, Kezic said.

"We are not saying that we will discover all the mines on a minefield, but the fact is that it should be checked if a minefield is really de-mined," he said. "It has been scientifically proven that there are never zero mines on a de-mined field, and that's where bees could come in."

© 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

"Honeybees trained in Croatia to find land mines." May 19th, 2013. http://phys.org/news/2013-05-honeybees-croatia.html

 

[EnolaGaia]

This UK teenager aided a struggling bumblebee, and ever since the bee has been her constant companion.

Teenager adopts bumblebee which sleeps next to her and follows her to the shops

A teenager accidentally adopted a bumblebee after she rescued it - and now refuses to leave her side as it sleeps next to her and enjoys eating jammy dodgers.

Lacey Shillinglaw, 13, says "Betty" follows her everywhere after she first spotted it struggling two weeks ago. ...

She saw the large fluffy bumblebee lying in the road while walking her dog and scooped it up to place it somewhere safer.

Betty kept buzzing back to Lacey and after an hour she gave up and decided to take her home with her.

Lacey, from Coventry, West Midlands, then tried to leave Better outside but she has refused to leave her side. ...

The teen says Betty sleeps next to her on the bedside table, has followed her to the shops and even joined on family outings to the bowling alley. ...

Mum Laura said: "She absolutely loves her. It's completely lovely and also bonkers.

"Betty wanders all over her. including her face, and her glasses, and even in between her toes. ...

FULL STORY (With Photos): https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/teenager-adopts-bumblebee-sleeps-next-24804685

 

[JamesWhitehead]

Those be 'er Fermilibeeeeeeurrzzzzzz - burn t'wench!

 

[ramonmercado]

Vid at link.

Swarm of bees shuts down water wheel attraction​

The world's largest working water wheel was forced to shut after a swarm of bees took up residence at its entrance.

A beekeeper was brought in to relocate them from the Great Laxey Wheel in the Isle of Man.

Also known as Lady Isabella, the island's iconic landmark was built in 1854 to pump water from the local mines.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-isle-of-man-65658619

 

[brownmane]

This is interesting, but I wonder if they've tried this with real people rather than a two dimensional photo? Would the bees do as well? Are they really recognizing faces? I would think that how we recognize familiar 2D faces in photos would be different from how we recognize a real person.

Edited to add that I was referring to original post.

 

[catseye]

This is interesting, but I wonder if they've tried this with real people rather than a two dimensional photo? Would the bees do as well? Are they really recognizing faces? I would think that how we recognize familiar 2D faces in photos would be different from how we recognize a real person.

Other animals do recognize people - my favourite current interest is crows because I have 2-5 crows in my backyard/neighbouring yards.

Bees would have to have the facility to recognise certain shapes - to enable them to fly to familiar flower locations. So perhaps it's less them 'recognising faces' as just 'recognising a shape they had seen before'. Without knowing it to be a face at all.

 

[PeteS]

Strangely this week I seem to have been befriended by a huge bumble bee. On Monday on the drive messing with cars I felt something crawling on my left arm. Large bee with a very noticeable V shape orange stripe on it's body. A gentle shake of arm failed to dislodge it and gently blowing towards it had no effect. I tried to cajole it onto leaves on a bush but no joy it just hunkered down so I sat on the doorstep and watched it carefully. It must have sat there for 5 minutes until there was a drop of rain whereupon it buzzed off loudly. Today, finishing off what I had been doing Monday my friend returned to sit on my hand (same orange V shape on it's body - same bee or it's twin). I had some pretty smelly chemicals on my hands so this time it didn't hang around. Funny coincidence.

 

[AnonyJ]

I fed a very tired and cold small garden bumblebee Bombus hortorum last summer, a bit of sugar water and it was away after a few minutes. Fascinating! They have a very long tongue and this wee bee was so cute, kinda giving me a leg-wave to say "cheers". The video is crap as I recorded it with one hand and it's on my cheapo 6 year old phone but hope you enjoy it anyhow

 

[Frideswide]

hope you enjoy it anyhow

Oh I do!

 

[maximus otter]

I’ve just this minute donned my 501s to walk to the bus stop and found Eric here, wrapped up in a fold in one of the legs:

I’ve no idea how long he’s been there or how he got there.

Rest assured that he was eased gently out of the window, still apparently half asleep.

maximus otter

 

[ramonmercado]

Bees manage to co-exist with the Scottish Parliament. MSPs are their sporran partners.

How many honey bees does it take to seal an Act of Parliament?

In the case of the Scottish Parliament, the answer is one million. On the roof of the parliament building in Edinburgh, a million bees spread across 15 hives not only create honey every year but also the wax used to fill the Great Seal of Scotland which seals each Act of the Scottish Parliament.

The big responsibility of caring for the hives lies with official beekeeper of the Scottish Parliament, Stuart Hood. He has spoken about his first encounter with a bee and how beekeeping became a family business.

IMAGE SOURCE, HOODS HONEY Image caption, One of Stuart Hood's first memories was being stung by a bee

IMAGE SOURCE, HOODS HONEY

"My very first memory was my father kissing me goodnight and a bee that was in his clothes stung me - I could only have been two years old," he said. "If I had a pound for every time I've been stung, I'd be sitting on a beach somewhere with my feet up drinking cocktails but I wouldn't be - I'd still be looking after my bees to be honest with you."

With the help of his daughter Eilidh - a fourth generation beekeeper - Mr Hood visits the parliament weekly in the summer months to check on the bees.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-66534614