The mind of a Bee with Lars Chittka

This episode is with Lars Chittka. He is a professor at Queen Mary, University of London. Lars is an expert on the behaviour, cognition and ecology of Bees, and their interactions with flowers. His latest book is 'The mind of a Bee' where he explores the vast amount of work done on the Bee behavior. In this conversation we talk about structure of Bee colonies, Nature-nurture, cognition, intelligence and consciousness.

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Timestamps:

00:00:00 Introduction

00:00:51 Most alien thing about Bees

00:02:12 Words of Maurice Maeterlinck

00:03:32 How do Bees perceive the world?

00:05:11 Seeing UV light

00:05:43 How a new born Bee would learn about its world?

00:08:25 Evolution of sensitivity to UV

00:11:00 Bee and flower evolution

00:13:41 How a Bee manages task of foraging?

00:18:31 Can Bees see in the Dark?

00:23:15 Cognitive maps in Bees

00:26:44 Landmarks recognition by Bees

00:28:06 Are Bees social animals?

00:36:28 Bees as carnivores

00:38:46 Social structure of Bees

00:45:01 Understanding nature-nurture from social insects

00:50:33 When the fate (to be a worker or not) of a Bee is decided?

00:52:18 Arms race between queen and works

00:54:02 Making of a Queen

00:58:21 Bee nest

01:01:17 Plasticity in Bee communication

01:07:21 Intelligence and cognition in Bees

01:14:29 Memory and Metacognition

01:23:50 Are Bees conscious?

01:37:52 Hard problem of consciousness

01:43:38 Importance of Bees

01:47:08 Bee conservation

01:54:29 Sensory, perception system of Bees and AI

01:58:58 Thank you!

#reasonwithscience #consciousness #intelligence