Scientists now know that bees can process time, a first in insects

The researchers designed a maze to test bees' ability to distinguish between long and short flashes of light. Alex Davidson/Queen Mary University

Bumblebees can process the duration of flashes of light and use the information to decide where to look for food, a new study has found.

This is the first evidence of such an ability in insects, according to doctoral student Alex Davidson and his supervisor Elisabetta Versace, a senior lecturer in psychology at Queen Mary University of London. The discovery could help settle a long-standing debate among scientists about whether insects are able to process complex patterns, Versace told CNN.

“In the past, it was thought that they were just very basic reflex machines that don’t have any flexibility,” she said.

To reach its finding, the team s