Continuing our alphabet, today’s letter B is for bee brains. Most bees have a brain smaller than a grain of rice, yet they are able to perform complex tasks such as finding nectar and pollen. A honey bee can identify its nest mates and locate the exact same pebble on the edge of a stream over and over to gather a small bit of water.

Recent research has found that bees may even have sophisticated emotions, and studies with bumble bees have shown that they can count and teach each other to solve puzzles. Bees have an amazing sense of smell, and a Buzz about Bees article discusses how bees can be trained to detect disease and explosives. A bees brain is relatively larger than other insects, and has the tell tale folds associated with higher intelligence in humans.

In mammals, brain function is centralized in the head, with nerves emanating throughout the body from this central brain. In bees and other insects, the brain is the largest nerve center, but they also have several nerve ganglia along the top of the body (and no spine, unlike mammals). These ganglia are collections of nerve cells thought to control various aspects of the bee, with nerves emanating outward from each of these ganglia. Adult honey bees have seven ganglia: two in the head, two in the thorax, and two in the abdomen.

Think about that the next time someone talks about a hive mind.

May you prosper and find honey.