Can bees see colors inquiry What is the

Can bees see colors inquiry What is the adaptive advantage of color vision?

Hypotheses • Bees cannot see blue • Bees cannot see green • Bees cannot see yellow • Bees cannot see red

Protocol • Place a patchwork of colored squares. Cover the squares with a glass plate. Place a dish of unscented sugar syrup (25%) on one color. Place empty dishes on the other squares. After bees regularly visit the syrup laden dish, rearrange the colored squares and place empty dishes on each square.

Data collection • Before collecting data, clean the glass plate and all dishes to be certain that scent is not a factor • Return the patchwork grid and empty dishes to the original location • Count the bees that land on each colored square for 10 minutes • Have students repeat the experiment 3 for each color they want to test

Reporting findings • Plot results for each trial as a histogram • Ask students what the results suggest about their hypothesis • Encourage students to speculate about how honey bees might benefit from color vision

Conclusions • Bees have color vision • Bees can see green, blue and yellow • Bees cannot distinguish red from black • This experiment will not show another important aspect of bee vision – that bees can see ultraviolet

Humans cannot see ultraviolet Bees can see ultraviolet, but cannot see red