Hive Of Industry: Scientists At Queen Mary University of London Are Actually Teaching Bees To Play Football (Video)

Chris Wright

24th, February 2017

1 Comment

bees-football

Photo: Queen Mary University Of London

As part of their study into the behaviour of bumblebees, scientists at Queen Mary University of London are teaching the honey-hoarding little buggers to play football.

Specifically, the bees have learned how to manipulate tiny ‘footballs’ in order to score ‘goals’ and obtain a sweet treat.

According to ITV News, the scientists were surprised at just how quickly the bees realised that dribbling the ball into a hole in the middle of their pitch earned them a droplet from a pipette of sugary solution.

They were given two types of training, either watching a previously trained bee score, or being shown the ball that appeared to move on its own with help of an unseen magnet.

You don’t just have to sit there and take our word for it though, as QMUL have knocked up a highlights package of one of the recent matches…

Professor Lars Chittka, project leader, proudly parped:

Our study puts the final nail in the coffin of the idea that small brains constrain insects to have limited behavioural flexibility and only simple learning abilities.

For the record, Chittka confirmed that insects able to observe other bees scoring a goal were much better at replicating the task than those guided by a magnetic teacher.

The long and short of it being that there may just be hope for Theo Walcott yet.

Posted in Newsnow, Videos

Share this article: Email

1 Comment

  1. Fat Nakago says:

    “….hope for Theo Walcott….”

    BRILLIANT!!!

Leave a Reply