Bee Colors and Patterns

BEE EYES

The senses of bees are highly developed, specially sight. Bees have got five eyes, two compound eyes and three simple eyes. The simple eyes are located on the top of the head. They allow them to perceive polarised light and its intensity.

However, the compound eyes are larger and they are located in the upper corners of the head. They allow bees to see their environment sorroundings, identify the movement of the objects and react quickly.

BEE COLOURS

Bees can recognise faces, shapes and lines.

They can distinguish the following colours: yellow, blue, ultraviolet and blueish green. But they can't distinguish red from black. One curiosity is that bees are very attracted to red flowers despite the fact that they can't detect their colour, but this is because these flowers reflect the ultraviolet light in its entirety or in certain patterns, which the bees can detect very well.

Bees can also distinguish the polarisation light. This ability to distinguish polarised light in the ultraviolet is indispensable for their orientation on cloudy days where other wavelengths are more disturbed.

We have made some glasses with blue glasses to see the flowers. So we became bees for a moment thanks to that glasses, we could see the flowers blue as the bees see.

We also investigate about the patterns of the bees and we found that bees can see flowers with an hexagonal pattern. We colour some pictures with this pattern.

Examples of flowers with an hexagonal pattern.

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