Honey bees 'can count to four'

Honey bees have the ability to count to four, according to new research in Australia.

Scientists in Queensland tested the intelligence of the insects by observing their reactions in a tunnel which had nectar placed in just one of five different markers.

"We find that if you train them to the third stripe, they will look subsequently in the third stripe," one researcher, Mandyam Srinivasan, explained. "If you train them to the fourth stripe, they will look the fourth stripe and so on. But their ability to count seems to go only up to four. They can't count beyond four.

"The more we look at these creatures that have a brain the size of a sesame seed, the more astonished we are. They really have a lot of the capacities that we so-called higher human beings possess."

Srinivasan also revealed that the bees had been able to differentiate between colours and smells, as well as flying through a variety of complex mazes.