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dark_LUEshi t1_ja07uhy wrote

Reply to comment by Hattix in TIL that despite having brains the size of poppy seeds, bees are able to recognize and remember human faces. In a study, researchers paired images of human faces with sugar-laced water, and bees were able to recognize and remember the faces even when the reward was no longer present. by MaleficentTop6074

no doubt but I don't get how bees can recognize people when I have issues lol. Would make much more sense that they rely on olfactive cues, like other social insects, ants. I bet giant apes are quite smelly.

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KingfisherDays t1_ja0brxg wrote

I'm not sure how applying your personal experience with faces (which is quite unusual for humans, who are great at recognizing faces) makes sense when we're talking about bees.

Also, the studies used pictures of faces and stylized faces, so no actual humans were being recognized - or smelled.

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dark_LUEshi t1_ja0d0pc wrote

damn, I should have read the whole thing, the study was properly made then, sometimes it's just bad science that can be explained otherwise but in this case... I don't feel bad if i'm wrong, I've often read that bees can use visual cues to identify flowers so no doubt there's some truth there. I shouldn't have assumed they used people.

I guess they see us as giant flowers and can quickly learn which "flowers" are good. they can probably share that info amongst the colony as well. Fascinating how simple mechanisms can evolve and become so resilient. Probably a lot to learn from social insects if we want to make better electronics down the path.

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