Bees are amazing highly intelligent, very likely sentient, and emotional
animals. Bee expert Dr. Mathieu Lihoreau's new book titled What Do Bees
Think About? is an eye-opening and mind-expanding addition to what we know
and continue to learn about these tiny-brained beings.1 Here's what he had
to say about these brilliant deeply feeling beings.
Marc Bekoff: Why did you write What Do Bees Think
About?
Mathieu Lihoreau: I am convinced that science can improve
pretty much every aspect of our societies. It is needed to find solutions
for facing the looming environmental crisis, which is probably the main
challenge of humanity. But for this to work, it is a prerequisite that
people trust science and scientists. One way to do this is to disseminate as
much as possible our discoveries and knowledge to the general public. Bees
are what I know about.
MB: How does your book relate to your background and
general areas of interest?
ML: This book is the story of my life. I've studied insect
behavior for about 20 years. All the discoveries I describe have been made
by famous researchers who pioneered the field, and key scientists who
followed in their footsteps and continue to do so.
MB: Who do you hope will read your book?
ML: This is a scientific book. University students and
beekeepers will certainly find useful up-to-date information. But it is also
for all curious people who want to know more about the inner lives of bees
and other insects. I aim to convince people that, despite their strange
looks, insects aren't that different from larger animals, including humans.
Like insects, we are animals living in a transitioning world. Realizing this
will hopefully be a first step towards better respect and protection of
nature.
MB: What are some of the major topics you consider?
ML: The book compiles a century of research on insect
behaviour, starting with the work of famous pioneers like Charles Darwin,
the co-discover of the theory of evolution by natural selection, and Karl
von Frisch, the co-founder of the science of animal behaviour, to the most
recent and actively debated research on animal consciousness.
Throughout this history, I describe how bees manage to navigate, sometimes
over several kilometers, using the sun, footpaths, tree lines, and mountains
to collect nectar to feed their larvae. I also explain how these social
insects communicate using a symbolic language unique to non-human animals,
and often spy on each other to acquire new knowledge and develop cultural
behaviour.
Very recent discoveries about the unsuspected complexity of insects' inner
lives, suggest that bees have emotions, can feel pain, and are conscious.
All these sophisticated individual capacities facilitate the emergence of
complex collective behaviour resulting, for instance, in the fascinating
architectural chef d’oeuvre that is a honey bee nest, or in democratic votes
for choosing a future home. All these discoveries point towards the small
and fragile insect brain that can be seen as their Achille’s heel in a
highly anthropized and rapidly changing world. Bees and other insects are on
the front lines. Caring for them is an absolute necessity if we are to save
this world.
MB: How does your book differ from others that are
concerned with some of the same general topics?
ML: There are a lot of books on bees. Most of them describe
the fascinating but unique social lifestyle of the honeybees. My book deals
with the scientific knowledge regarding the intelligence of bees and insects
in general. Although the content is highly scientific, it is not an academic
textbook. I hope you will learn about what goes on behind the scenes of
research, how major discoveries were made, how researchers failed and
sometimes succeeded, and how this story is changing our conception of insect
beings and animal intelligence in general.
MB: Are you hopeful that as people learn more about these
amazing insects they will treat them with more respect and compassion?
ML: I am somewhat hopeful. We are living in difficult times
in which biodiversity is declining and the climate is changing in front of
our eyes. I know that my book will not stop that. However, I hope it can
help trigger a change in the way we all treat our environment, starting with
small insects. Over the past decades, researchers have begun to build a new
idea of who insects are, as cognitive and sentient beings. This scientific
revolution has changed the way scientists consider insects and interact with
them, with, for instance, the emergence of discussions about insect welfare.
Humans are not that different from these small animals and this realization
has forced us to change our interactions with them. I hope the same will
happen to readers of this book as well.
References
In conversation with Mathieu Lihoreau, a researcher of animal behaviour,
Research Director at the French National Center for Scientific Research
(CNRS). His work helps unravel the mysteries of animal intelligence through
the study of small-brained insects. After having studied the family odours
of ants, the personalities of roaches, and the votes in fruit flies, he
currently runs a lab in Toulouse in which he investigates in great detail
the movements and interactions of bees in their natural environments using
radar, robotic plants, and computational models.
1)
The Swarm Intelligence of Piping Hot and Boisterous Honey Bees; The
Fascinating Minds and Personalities of Bees;
The Mind-Blowing Lives of Amazing
Bees;
Bumble Bees Play With Balls and May Even Enjoy It;
The Fascinating Complex Minds of Bees and Why They Matter;
The Current State of the Science of Insect Sentience.
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