BEES DO MATH BETTER AFTER BEING PUNISHED

Bees have already proven they can count up to 4 and learn some basic arithmetic. Now new findings published in the Journal of Experimental Biology suggest bees can compute even higher numbers — if they know they’ll be penalized for the wrong answer.  Researchers took 22 honeybees and taught them to enter a Y-shaped maze and choose between two options, one right and one wrong. The correct answer always had four shapes, and the incorrect one could feature anywhere from one to 10 shapes.
One group received a reward of sucrose for the right answer (* sweet, sweet sucrose…), the other group received a bitter dose of quinine for the wrong answer, effectively punishing the bee.The bees who knew about the quinine consequence correctly chose the four-shape image 59% of the time. In other words, like humans, bees are more likely to make right choices when motivation is high.
* What kind of sicko goes around torturing bees? Was this experiment designed by a 9-year-old boy?
* You’d think the bees would be real good at counting to six. Because, you know, the legs.
* Not only do they have to get the right answer, but they have to show their work.
* Some bees got the correct answer, but they didn’t use Common Core, so they were squished.
* Some kinky bees purposely give the wrong answer, just so they can be punished.