Bees have a grasp of basic maths and are able to add and subtract, a joint Australian-French study has shown.
In an experiment with far reaching implications, scientists taught honey bees to recognise colours as plus or minus symbols.
Armed with this knowledge, they went on to solve basic mathematical problems set by the scientists.
The bees completed the tasks with a success rate of up to 75 per cent. Understanding how a tiny bee brain can do arithmetic could lead to better artificial intelligence (AI) systems, according to the Australian and French team.