Book Reviewed: The Mind of a Bee by Lars Chittka

Do bees have feelings? Trying to understand the mental experience of others is a philosophical, physical, and neurobiological challenge. Experiences are inherently subjective; hence it is hard to know how others experience the realities of life. For example, we know the complete genome of a laboratory mouse, but we do not know what it is like to be a mouse. In this book, the author examines the nervous system, navigational, and learning abilities of bees and tries to find if they have consciousness, and how does it compare to that of human consciousness. The human brain has eighty-six billion neurons, but insects get by with a lot fewer. The honeybee has about one million neurons, and the tiny wasp (Megaphragma mymaripenne) lives with fewer than 10,000 neurons. How does a bee with a small brain produce highly sophisticated behavior? Apparently, the size does not limit their behavioral sophistication because they are wired for efficient information storage and retrieval Bees see different colors than humans, they are sensitive to light, magnetic and electric fields. Thus, they perceive and respond to information that humans do not experience. For example, bumblebees may use minor changes in the electrostatic patterns of flowers to assess which ones have been recently drained by other bees. They also learn to recognize human faces and spatial structures which is significant evolutionary behavior considering their brains are small and lack the specialized module that humans use for facial recognition. The author paints a remarkable picture of bee behavior and psychology in which he argues that bees have sophisticated emotions resembling optimism, frustration, playfulness, fear, and other traits commonly associated with mammals. He observes that bees are sentient and can suffer like advanced life forms as a conviction that creatures without a backbone have rights too. The author’s style of writing and narrating his scientific arguments are engaging by connecting one chapter to the next in a continuous manner. One fact that haunts me is the consciousness debate which needs to address physical (theoretical physics) and philosophical implications and not merely neurobiological and evolutionary attributes. Consciousness is most fundamental like matter and energy. Another surprising thing is that Insect biologists have also been advancing the rights for bees and wasps just as humans and other mammalian species have.