GIRLS JUST WANA HAVE FUN?

Bumblebees play football. Samadi Galpayage, is a researcher from Queen Mary’s University in London (QMUL), and convinced that Bumble Bees get pleasure from play.

In a 2022 edition of Nature, Samadi describes how he created an enclosed foraging area for a cohort of captive Bumble Bees with a “diversion” of “toys” placed on route. The inquisitive and fun loving Bumbles took time out to explore the toys, mostly tiny wooden balls and appeared to play with them. The study subjects even repeated the activity on subsequent occasions, as if remembering having enjoyed it last time.

In the next phase of the study, it was noticed that the Bumbles began to positively choose new areas painted the same colour as used in the play area, a possible indication of both an association of safety and, perhaps, that they liked their play room quite a lot?

So, not only is it becoming clear that bee family members experience both stress and pain with their massive (for an insect) and complex brains, it also appears that they seek “pleasure” at some rudimentary level too. As Galpayage’s colleague in the study Lars Chittka observed: “This research provides a strong indication that insect minds are far more sophisticated than we might imagine”.